


Creating a Pathway

by benchofindigo



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: AU - Canon Divergence, Angst, Changing POV, Drug Use, Multi, Post Season 1, background Joann/Keyla, questionable science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-03 21:44:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 49,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15827523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benchofindigo/pseuds/benchofindigo
Summary: Ash just wanted a moment to get away from it all - just a moment where he could relax and forget about all of his troubles. Instead he finds himself in the veil between life and death talking to Hugh Culber of all people and it just gets more complicated from there.Or: Ash Tyler helps bring Hugh Culber back to life.





	1. Part 1 - Ash Tyler

**Author's Note:**

> Will be updating weekly. Please let me know if I've written anything offensive/harmful and I'll do my best to change/remove it!
> 
> Enjoy :)

He’s falling, yanked along as if on this invisible string, and he can’t stop. It’s not the most pleasant feeling, hardly relaxing at all. He should really get his darseks back.

Then he stops moving.

It’s weird. There’s too many distorting colours; the area around him seems to be constantly shifting and deforming. It’s dizzying.

“Paul?”

He turns around and notices this moving dark shape getting closer to him. There’s only one Paul that he knows and that’s Paul Stamets from the Discovery which he looks nothing like.

Then the shape gets clearer – it’s Hugh Culber, the man Ash killed.

And here he had taken that drug to escape his problems and nightmares, not confront them.

“Ah Ash. Sorry, my mistake.”

Ash doesn’t miss the look of pain and loneliness that passes over Hugh’s face before the doctor forces a smile. Ash doesn’t know why he is being nice to him. If he encountered his murderer he certainly wouldn’t be _apologizing_ to him.

“It’s fine… are you actually here?”

“Yeah, this is sort of like the veil between life and death. Question is, how are you here?”

Between life and death…? He really should have looked into that drug before he took it. “Does that mean I’m dead?”

Hugh shakes his head. “No, you aren’t supposed to meet anyone else here when you pass on.”

Well that's a relief. Yes, he’s depressed but he doesn’t want to die, at least not till he can truly fix things with Michael. If that’s still possible. He won’t go back unless he knows for sure that she’s okay with seeing him, and she may never be, which pains him but he’ll have to accept that.

“Then what am I doing here?”

“That may be my fault. I put out… feelers I guess you could say to bring in anyone who knew me to come here if they ever made it into this place.”

“Why?”

And this time Hugh doesn’t even bother to hide his pain and despair. “I’m waiting for Paul.”

“To die?”

“No, it sounds stupid, but to bring me back.”

“Bring you back?”

“It’s possible and I told Paul, he seemed to understand, but… he hasn’t found out how yet.”

Ash doesn’t know what to say. Bringing someone back to life is as far as he knows, impossible. “Well I’m sure he’s still looking for a way.” Maybe he shouldn’t be giving him hope, but it’s the least he can do, right?

Hugh, however, shakes his head. “I don’t know… time moves differently here. It’s hard to explain. Sometimes it feels like hundreds of years, other times it’s like only seconds have passed. It’s… he could die and move through the veil and be waiting for me and I wouldn’t know it, and I’m just foolishly waiting here hoping he’ll bring me back to life.”

“Then why don’t you move on?”

“Cause what if he finds a way and I’m not here? I can’t do that to him. I shouldn’t have even let him have hope. What kind of person encourages their love to do the impossible? I should have told him that he will find someone else and that it’s okay if he falls in love again. That’s what I should have said.”

Ash hates this. For this is his fault and he has to make it right.

“Well how can you come back?”

Hugh looks at him in surprise. “You ugh… you need to create a pathway between this place and our universe. Specifically, with my body. You can do that with the mycelial network, but the thing is you need a stabilizer to ensure that the pathway stays open and on target. It’s extremely easy to get lost otherwise.”

Ash isn’t sure he understands, but he does know about the mycelial network so he can start there.

“So you need Paul to make another jump?” From what he knows Paul is no longer using the spore drive, but he’s sure that he will do so again if he knows he can bring Hugh back.

“No. I’m technically the one who needs to make the jump, but I can’t make the pathway. I need someone from our Universe to do that.”

“Okay, once I get back I can try and contact Paul and see if he knows what to do.”

Hugh lights up. “For real? Wait. How are you here?”

“I took this Klingon drug, was said to be a relaxer of sorts.”

“Your body chemistry probably reacted to it differently. Maybe you could… no your mind is part Klingon…”

Ash winces, but Hugh doesn’t notice.

“… it would be too dangerous to test it on a regular human mind.”

“I’m sure he won’t mind the risk,” Ash says, knowing if he tells Paul how he contacted Hugh he’s going to want to do the same.

“No! You are not going to tell him. He’s already gone through enough with the tardigrade DNA.”

“Then how am I supposed to convince him?”

Hugh screws his eyes shut in frustration. “Okay fine, you can tell him, but don’t let him use it.”

“Okay,” Ash says, already knowing that if Paul demands to use it he’s not going to stop him.

“Would you mind being the contact between us two for now till we figure something out?”

“Uhh okay, I’ll have to find him first though.”

“Wait, what do you mean?”

Of course. He doesn’t know.

“I got booted out of Starfleet and I’m now with the Klingons helping them make deals with the Federation.”

Hugh’s silent for several seconds.

“So you don’t know what’s happening with Paul.”

“No.”

Hugh’s face falls.

“I’m sure he’s alright,” Ash says, though that too feels like a lie. He has not been keeping tabs of what’s been going on with the Discovery since he left. He knew doing so would drive him mad.

Hugh strengthens his resolve. “Well what matters first is making sure my body is still around. It doesn’t matter what state it’s in, that can be fixed, but we need my physical body.”

“Right,” nods Ash, making a mental list, “and you said something about a stabilizer?”

Hugh grimaces. “Yeah, since I have to make the jump I need some way to make sure I don’t get lost and without a physical form it’s so much easier to forget.”

“Do you have any idea…?”

“Not a clue.”

Right. Okay, well like Hugh said, let’s take things one step at a time.

He feels the tug again. It seems his time here is up.

“I have to go, but I’ll get started.”

“Thank you,” Hugh says, a pained sort of hope shining in his eyes.

Ash gets pulled away with the image ingrained in his brain.

He opens his eyes and he’s back in the den where he took the drug. The Klingon dealer is smoking something else to the side.

“Ah, feeling relaxed?” he asks in Klingon.

Hardly, but he doesn’t need to know that. “May I have some more? For later?”

The Klingon grins. It’s not a nice grin. “How much you got?”

…

Ash shuts himself in his room. L’Rell wanted to have dinner with him, but he feigned fatigue. He knows that L’Rell wants to start things with him; she hopes to find Voq inside again or bring him out, and though Ash is fine working with her he will never again let her get close. And he’ll never let Voq come out again. He already has to live with the additional memories, he doesn’t want to lose control again.

Besides, he has work to do.

First, he tries to contact Stamets directly, but can’t get through. Then he tries Tilly and can’t get through either. Neither with Saru, or Joann, or any of his former security team. He stares at his com for a good five minutes before dredging up the resolve and coms Michael. Again nothing.

At this point he’s getting worried.

He decides to contact the Discovery directly. Airiam answers. “Discovery.”

“Airiam! Can you get me in contact with Paul?”

There is a silence then, “Who is this?” it’s a different voice. Ash can’t tell whether it’s male or female, but it’s harsh and untrusting.

“Umm Ash Tyler, former Starfleet-”

“You were discharged from Starfleet during the Klingon War,” the voice snaps.

Ash winces. “Yes, but –”

“We will not conduct any business with you.”

“Wait –”

But the com is already cut. Ash slams his fist down on the desk. “Dammit!”

He tries calling again, only to find the number is blocked. Something is really going wrong over there and he’s growing concerned.

Well perhaps he should find Hugh’s body first, make sure there’s actually a possibility of making this happen.

The location of his body is actually quite easy to find – it’s locked away in a storage facility in Paris under Paul Stamets’ name. Interesting that he didn’t take it with him, but then perhaps that would have generated too many questions and regulatory problems. Either way it’s good to know that the body is being preserved and will remain that way.

Now, back to the Discovery problem.

He checks Federation news and finds that the Discovery is currently out in unchartered territory so he can’t even meet them at a planet or space station if his continuing attempts to contact them go unanswered.

Actual news of Discovery’s proceedings and findings have been slim to none. This is cause for concern in and off itself, but the rest of the Federation don’t seem to care.

He checks who the new captain is.

Captain Nuvo. Non-binary, been in Starfleet for over thirty years. Their previous ship had been destroyed during the Klingon War.

Anther captain that did not go down with their ship.

They were well decorated and seemed to have good experience, but Ash couldn’t help but get a funny feeling off them.

He tries to com his old shipmates again. No luck.

Okay, he’ll try a different route. He contacts Cornwell.

She answers on the second ring.

“Tyler. I hope the Klingons are not trying to back out of the deal already.”

“Thankfully not.” That deal had certainly been a pain in the ass to get signed. “No, I’m trying to contact the Discovery and no one is answering.”

“Ah, the Discovery has limited all communications. Only emergency contact is permitted.”

“Why?”

“They are on a high sensitive charting mission at the moment. They cannot afford distractions.”

That was the most bullshit thing he’s heard.

“Please, I need to contact…” he was about to say Paul, but that would seem strange, and he doesn’t think it’s a good idea to tell Cornwell his actual reason for making contact. “Michael,” he says instead.

Cornwell’s face is pitying. “I’m sure whatever you have to say to her can wait till she gets back. They should be returning to Federation territory in about a month.”

A month.

He remembers Hugh’s desperate, lonely face. He doesn’t want to leave that man like that for another month. But there’s nothing he can do about it for now.

“Right, okay then Admiral. Thank you.”

“Take care Tyler, and keep up the good work. The Federation appreciates it.”

Ash cuts off the com, not wanting to hear the praise. Of course the Federation appreciates it. They would be light years away from many of the deals already signed if not for him. Yet, they still have him classified as a felon and while he is in many ways, it’s dragging. Especially when neither the Federation nor the Klingons fully respect him at the negotiation table.

Sometimes he just wants to walk away from it all, but then he remembers how Michael had redeemed herself and it forces him to continue. He can build himself back up and become a better man. He has to.

Now what to do.

He looks over at the bag that contains the drugs. He contemplates taking another dose. He should tell Hugh that there will be a delay, and maybe they can come up with some more options. After all, Ash can’t do it on his own. He’s trained in security and piloting, not science. All that stuff goes beyond him.

Screams echo out in the night air.

Before he’s even registered what he’s doing, he’s grabbed his phaser and is out the door.

He runs towards the sounds of the screams and skids to a stop upon seeing the cause of it. It’s a tardigrade going into panic mode. It already looks like three people are dead and citizens are running all over the place.

The poor thing is looking for a place to hide and, but there isn’t really one in a busy place like this. Ash can’t help but wonder what’s it doing here. The one on the Discovery had been the first of its kind that the Federation knew of. Why is there suddenly another one?

A group of Klingons arrive at the scene and started shooting at the poor thing. Ash jumps into action.

“STOP!” he yells in Klingon. They looked at him as if he’s crazy and continue shooting.

The tardigrade trembles in fright and runs at the Klingons firing at it. It easily tears them apart, but Ash can see that more are coming. He has to do something, yet what? He doesn’t know how to deal with wild animals, except to take them down that is, and he can’t do that here.

He steps forwards holding out his hands. “Hey,” he says in Standard hoping that it’ll understand that better than Klingon.

The tardigrade turns to Ash and for a beat Ash thinks it’ll run after him. He’ll surely be dead if it decides to do so.

It does start lobbing over to him, but instead of attacking him it sort of runs around him and nudges at him then lobs off in the direction Ash came from.

He looks after it. If he’s right, and not anthropomorphising it, he believes the tardigrade wishes him to follow.

So he does.

The tardigrade scuttles off back to Ash’s room of all places and buts its head against the door. He supposes his life is already strange enough that this shouldn’t really surprise him anymore.

Ash opens it and watches as the thing shuffles over to Ash’s bag of drugs and rummages through it.

“Hey, no no no,” Ash says rushing over and trying to pull the bag away. All that does is spill the drugs all over the floor.

The tardigrade lets go of the bag and picks up one of the pieces. Instead of consuming it like Ash expected it to, the tardigrade nudges at Ash’s hand.

Ash opens his hand and it drops the drug in it. Now Ash is just confused.

Before he can figure things out there’s a knock at his door.

“Tyler! Are you alright?”

It’s L’Rell. Right, people have obviously seen Ash follow the tardigrade in here. He’ll have to get rid of her.

“I’m fine.”

“But the monster is in your room.”

“It’s not a monster, it just wants something and will be on it’s way once it gets it.” He doesn’t know that, but he has to assume that’s why it’s here.

“It killed eight people.”

“They attacked first, it was scared.”

The tardigrade nudges his hand again, making a little chittering sound. If Ash were to guess it wanted him to take it, but he couldn’t do that with L’Rell right outside his door.

He looks around, but his room is small and has no where that could fit a giant tardigrade.

With a sigh he goes to the door and opens it a crack. L’Rell is dressed in armour and looks concerned.

“Look I’m fine and it was an unfortunate accident, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“People think you are behind the attack.”

Yeah, Ash’s not surprised. “You know I wouldn’t.”

“Yes, but they don’t. They want the monster.”

He turns around only to find that it’s gone. He checks all over to make sure he’s not missing anything, but it’s truly not there anymore.

He opens the door further and lets L’Rell in.

“It left.”

“What did it want?”

“I don’t know,” Ash replies honestly.

L’Rell notices the drugs spread out all over the ground and freezes. “What are you doing with these?”

Ash winces. “I… I’m doing an experiment.”

“These are very dangerous! Even Klingons know only to take a little bit every now and then, and that’s only if they are truly desperate.”

No wonder the Klingon had been so eager to get him to try it, and his dose hadn’t exactly looked small either.

“I’m not… I’m fine. I’m not going to take it.” That’s a lie, but she doesn’t need to know that.

L’Rell looks unconvinced. “Then what do you have it for?”

“I’m trying different methods to see if I can grow cocoa beans. I miss chocolate and these drugs have similar properties to the cocoa plant and wanted to see if I could extract the elements and create a similar replication.” He’s talking out of his ass, but he hopes it sounds convincing.

“Why don’t you just buy this… chocolate?”

“It’s practically unheard of out here and those that know of it will demand enormous sums for retrieving it.”

“I can get some for you.”

“No, it’s okay. I don’t need it and it was a stupid idea. I’ll throw this stuff out.”

L’Rell looks him over, but thankfully nods his head. “Alright. Do you know where the thing went?”

Right, the tardigrade. “No, like I said, it just disappeared.”

L’Rell nodded. “Well if you see anything report to me.”

“Of course,” Ash says.

L’Rell takes her leave, but that doesn’t take away the problems she brought with her. The Klingons are likely going to hold a trial to determine his involvement in the attack, and he has no doubt that there will be many who will try and find him guilty. This day just keeps on getting worse and worse.

The tardigrade doesn’t return and Ash is not in the mood to try the drug again, so he just cleans it up and hides it away then decides to retire for the night.

He’ll deal with his many problems tomorrow.

...

He stands in court full of Klingons who all want his head. He is charged for the deaths of all those killed by the tardigrade and since there is no other person or thing to blame it seems he will be found guilty. They refuse to see it as an accident which is unfortunate, but knowing what Ash knows of the race, understandable.

Still, he doesn’t want to die. Not like this – wrongly accused and without anyone believing him. Well, he does have some supporters, like L’Rell, but that isn’t going to help much.

The judge clangs his gavel down, the sound echoing throughout the room at first causing the roars of the Klingons to mount up. A few more bangs and they finally cease.

“Ash Tyler, you are hereby accused of conspiring and acting upon the attack of eight citizens resulting in their deaths.”

Howls ring out again around the court. The judge bangs on his gavel roaring for silence, though it takes awhile for things to settle down again.

“How do you plead?”

“Not guilty.”

The howls start up again; this time the judge does not stop them and they keep growing and growing till Ash is sure his ear drums are about to burst.

“Enough!” L’Rell yells out stepping forwards.

This finally springs the judge into action and he bangs his gavel again. “You wish to defend his case?” the judge sneers.

“There is evidence neither for nor against his involvement in the attack.” Boos ring around the room. Ash looks up at the hateful faces and finds that Voq is used to such stares. He was always different. The closest he’s ever been to fitting in was when he thought he was just Ash living on Discovery amongst other humans. The thought saddens him.

“I must warn you,” L’Rell continues, “that if you do choose to kill him for this charge the Federation will not be pleased.”

“The Federation threw him out! Stripped him of his rank!” the Klingon prosecuting him says. Cheers ring out.

“Yes, but he is useful to them. They will ask questions and not be happy with our answers when we fail to provide proper evidence as to why we accused him of this attack.”

“The thing followed him to his room!”

“The attack was haphazard and makes no sense, and Ash Tyler has no motive. Why would he organize such a meaningless attack?” L’Rell presses.

“He is human! He wants us all dead.”

Roars ring out in agreement.

“Then why would he work so hard to improve our status amongst the Federation?”

“You’re only defending him because you fuck him!”

The following roars are deafening.

Ash flinches. The memories of her taking his body still haunt him even though he knows at the time it was apparently consensual. Not to Ash Tyler though.

He feels the beginnings of a panic attack start to creep up on him. His vision narrowing down to a tunnel and the noise of the Klingons in the room is not helping. He balls in hands into fists in the hopes of keeping it at bay and focusing on his breaths.

The sound of the gavel rings out around the room and thankfully the noise dies down.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

He slowly comes back into focus. L’Rell is speaking again and he tries to pick up the thread of the conversation.

“… he is a tool that can still be utilized and of no use if dead.”

A tool. Ah yes, what a great way to describe him. That is after all what L’Rell saw in him when she took him prisoner and instead of just torturing him and disposing him, decided to use his body for nefarious purposes. And he has been used one way or another ever since without his say on the matter. A tool.

“We cannot trust him,” the judge says.

The crowd cheers.

“But!” The crowd quiets down. “You are right when you say the Federation will not be pleased to hear of his death.”

Roars of disagreement echo around the room. The judge raps his gavel multiple times but it takes several minutes for the place to quiet down again, and there is a buzzing in the air that threatens to snap.

“However, we cannot let this go unpunished and no Klingon will feel safe working with him again. He shall be banished from all Klingon bases, never to return.”

Banished. What a funny word. It’s strange, but he feels hurt by the punishment. He’s not Klingon, yet he is – a part of him knows and loves the culture and the people and he’ll never be allowed to walk amongst them again. It’s like he will have to lose a piece of himself.

“Please,” L’Rell says, desperation apparent in her voice, but the decision has been made.

“Drop it,” he says in English knowing only she will understand.

She looks at him in despair, but there is nothing either of them can do.

He lets himself be dragged from the room. He has 24 hours to leave.

...

He finds himself on a Federation ship heading back to Earth. All that he has is one sack for his clothes, pad and the drugs he bought. They aren’t identifiable as any known human drug so it wasn’t picked up by sensors. A problem with the Federation and Starfleet that they have yet to address and will surely cause problems down the line. For now, though, it works to Ash’s advantage.

He doesn’t know what he'll do when he gets back on Earth however. He was trained as a soldier and doesn’t have many other skills. He supposes he could look into piloting, but the most he’ll be able to get is a chartering position and even that will be hard to come by once people look up his credentials. No one wants a dishonorably discharged Starfleet Security Officer on their payroll. Why he had left with L’Rell. And look how well that had turned out.

That stupid tardigrade.

Maybe he should go to one of the far out colonies that are just starting up and help out there. They don’t mind as much where you’re from.

The thought doesn’t bring him much appeal however, though it might be his only option.

He looks at his com. There’s a message from Cornwell which he ignores. Obviously, she wants to know what happened – Starfleet has after all just lost their main bargaining tool with the Klingons – but he doesn’t work for Starfleet anymore so he doesn’t actually have to report back to her.

At least for now he won’t. He may later, but only if he feels like it.

He once again tries to contact the Discovery and gets no response. Still out in the unknown then.

His eyes trail back to the drugs. Right, he should probably inform Hugh about all this mess… or at least his inability to contact the Discovery. He probably doesn’t care about Ash’s bad luck. But does he really want to pass along bad news to the man who is so desperate for any way out? The man is already on his last shreds of hope as it is.

Well, he can always tell him that his body is still around…

That’s it!

That’s what he’ll do – once back on Earth he’ll retrieve Hugh’s body and from there… well he doesn’t know what he’ll do from there, but it’ll be a start.

Resolved, he reaches for a piece of the drug and shaves it down till it’s ready to be snorted.

Once done, he inhales it and let’s himself be taken away.

…

He is once again falling and being pulled by an invisible thread. It’s not as disorienting this time now that he expects it, but it’s still weird.

He stops with a little jerk and waits for the place to get into focus… well as focused as it can get.

“Hugh?”

It takes a few moments, but eventually a blob approaches slowly forming into Hugh.

“Ash! Good to see you. Did you make contact with Paul?”

The hope in his voice cuts at Ash.

“No.”

Hugh’s face falls and the hope stripped away just like that. Oh why couldn’t Paul figure out a way to get to Hugh? Would make his life a whole lot easier. Then again, Ash supposes, he does deserve this – he was the one who did this to them.

“Apparently the ship has cut off all non-emergency contact.”

“That’s against Starfleet regulations!”

“I know, but Cornwell says it’s essential. I don’t know why – they obviously aren’t going to tell me anything.”

It’s silent for several long moments. Ash watches as various emotions of despair and pain cross over Hugh’s face.

Ash can’t help but acknowledge that though he always respected Dr. Culber, they hadn’t been close - Ash tended to avoid him as often as he could once he was cleared for duty. He is the wrong man to handle this situation.

But he’s the only person currently able to help at the moment so he has to try.

“I have looked up your body though and it is currently frozen in storage. I’m on my way there now to retrieve it.”

Hugh is barely listening, if at all. “How long has it been?” he asks in a broken voice.

Ash winces as he counts the months in his head. “Seven.” Just over half a standard Earth year.

“Seven months,” Hugh whispers. “Do you think he’s moved on by now?”

Ash highly doubts it and tells Hugh so. Hugh doesn’t seem convinced. “I should let him move on. I shouldn’t drag him into this. It’s not healthy! Why did I even… I should stop this.”

“No!”

No. This is Ash’s chance to fix things.

Hugh looks over at Ash in surprise, but that quickly turns into pity. “I don’t blame you.”

Ash shakes his head. “I killed you. You should.”

“No, I never did. But if you need my forgiveness, you have it.”

But Ash doesn’t want forgiveness, he wants to fix this. “Let me save you. It’s the least I can do. Please.”

Hugh is silent for several long moments. Ash knows that if Hugh decides to move on there will be nothing he can do about it, but he hopes he doesn’t. Not when Ash now knows there’s a way.

“Okay,” Hugh finally says.

Ash breathes out a sigh of relief.

“But don’t bring Paul into this.”

“What?”

“I can’t… if he’s moved on I don’t want to drag him back into this mess. He deserves to be happy and have a good life.”

“I’m sure he will kill for a chance to talk to you and be part of this,” Ash protests.

“Being able to talk to a dead person from time to time? No. That’s not healthy.”

“But won’t we need the mycelial network?”

Hugh nods. “We’ll see if we can find a way without him, and if we find that we do need him, we must be absolutely certain that it’ll work before we go to him.”

Ash isn’t sure how that’ll be possible, but nonetheless he agrees.

“And if that scenario happens, you will present him with the choice. If he chooses to bring me back then that is how it’ll happen. If he doesn’t… then I will move on.”

Ash doesn’t know what to say. It already feels like such a hopeless task.

But he’s committed. And he won’t back out.

“And Ash.”

“Yes?”

“If we’ve been trying to find a solution for over a year tell me and then stop. I will not be wasting your life further then that.”

Ash frowns. “What will you do after?”

Hugh doesn’t say.

“You do realize Paul might still be looking for a way. You can’t move on after a year if he’s still looking.”

Hugh shakes his head. “At that point a year and seven months will have passed since my death. I do not want him still looking for the impossible after that.”

“That is what you want, but you know Paul. Will he stop?”

And then Hugh truly breaks down. Ash awkwardly steps forward and pulls him into a hug which Hugh clings on to. He must be starving for human contact.

“I don’t know… I don’t know anymore. I’ve been here so long. I’ve lived ages in here and I don’t… it’s hard to see. I love him more than anything and I just want what’s best for him. At this point I truly believe that he needs someone else who is alive and healthy.”

“And that is what you will be,” Ash resolves. He pushes Hugh back gently so he can stare into his eyes. “I will find a way to bring you back and then you can go to Paul and continue your life together. Okay?”

Hugh’s eyes are red and watery and he still looks lost, but he nods his head and manages a weak smile.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

“Don’t thank me,” Ash says.

Then he’s pulled away; back to reality, and all the horrors that come with it.

...

Ash enters the storage compound and counts down the numbers till he gets to the container that holds Hugh. It’s a simple lock code that, as someone who used to be Chief of Security for a Starfleet Vessel, is no sweat.

He quickly overrides the code and enters turning on the lights.

The screech that echoes throughout the storage facility is deafening.

“Lights off!” Ash orders as he scrambles back, slamming the door closed. There’s a thud against the door, but thankfully it remains closed.

The container goes still.

Ash breathes a couple of deep breaths to control his racing heart.

What the fuck is a tardigrade doing in there?

As he thinks it over he comes to the horrific realization that this is probably not a coincidence. For goodness sake, he never even saw the tardigrade that was aboard the Discovery – only got a briefing on it after the fact. Why was it following him?

If it’s in there though… what does that mean for the body?

A rush of panic runs through him, but he forces himself to remain calm.

He slowly approaches the door and opens it a crack.

A wash of cold air comes at him and he can make out a coffin in the middle of the room. There’s a big dark object huddling in the corner that Ash knows to be the tardigrade.

“Lights 15%.”

The room now dimly lit, Ash can get a better picture of what is going on.

The tardigrade snuffles around in the corner. It’s almost cute.

Ash decides to focus on the coffin for now. It’s sealed shut and doesn’t look to be tampered with, which is a relief. There’s another lock to open it, but that’s beyond Ash’s expertise – has breath test and everything. This one is high grade. Paul obviously didn’t want anyone messing with it, which makes sense, but does present a problem for Ash. He’ll have to find Paul if he wants to bring Hugh back, so there goes his promise to Hugh.

The tardigrade snuffles over to Ash and starts sniffing around him. Ash holds very still, aiming at controlling his breathing. The thing is a peaceful creature until attacked, but Ash doesn’t want to accidentally startle it. He still doesn’t understand why it’s here and he’s fairly certain that it was the same tardigrade that was on Qo’noS. So Paul didn’t lock up a tardigrade in this storage unit… not that such a unit would be able to hold the creature, but it does bring up the question as to why it’s here now.

“What do you want big guy?” he asks.

It starts pawing at Ash’s bag, which contains the drugs. Maybe it’s hungry, though he remembered reading that it ate spores and he doesn’t believe the drugs he carries are made from mushrooms.

Still, he opens up his bag and pulls out a couple of the pieces and holds them out.

The tardigrade doesn’t take them however but nudges at Ash’s hand like it wants Ash to take it. But why?

Well, he supposes it wouldn’t hurt to update Hugh and maybe he has a clue as to why the tardigrade is following him around, though he would prefer not to consume the substance here.

Not wanting to anger the creature though, he takes out the little shaver –

It immediately gets thrown out of his hand by a whack of the tardigrade’s head.

“Okay, okay,” Ash says, holding out his hands. So no shaving the thing, but then what does it want?

The tardigrade nudges at Ash’s hand again, though with more force this time actually pushing the hand near his mouth.

“You want me to eat it?”

He supposes how you consume drugs does bring on different effects, but he doesn’t exactly want to go into this blind.

The tardigrade nudges him again.

“Okay, I’ll eat it!”

Why is he following the demands of a tardigrade? It’s just another indication of how weird his life has gotten.

He takes a bite of the drug.

It tastes absolutely disgusting.

He starts gagging and nearly spits it out, but the tardigrade makes a sort of hissing noise so he holds his hand to his mouth and forces himself to swallow. He waits a couple of seconds but nothing happens, though the horrid taste still lingers. When he snorts it the effects are instantaneous.

“Now what?”

It’s then like he’s lurched, being pulled somewhere, but he’s still in the storage room. He’s moving, but he’s not, or maybe the room is the thing that’s moving – it certainly looks like it’s spinning… not spinning exactly. Distorting?

He loses his balance and falls to the floor. The only thing that isn’t moving is the tardigrade. No, the creature is extremely still that it’s almost unnerving.

_Ash? Is that you?_

It’s Hugh’s voice, but Ash can’t see him. “Hugh? Where are you?”

_Where I always am. Where are you, I can’t see you._

“I’m…” something lurches, maybe it was him, maybe the storage unit… something. It makes Ash feel sick and he wants to throw up. He’s a pilot for fucks sake! He shouldn’t be getting motion sickness.

But this is something else, something Ash has never encountered before.

The tardigrade lets out a piercing scream and suddenly starts moving in circles. That can’t be good.

The pressure of the room starts mounting and Ash gets a splitting headache. He doesn’t understand what’s happening.

“Make it stop.”

_Make what stop?_

Hugh’s voice is fainter now. Black spots appear in Ash’s vision, but he tries to hold on, he needs to… he doesn’t know what he needs to do. “The tardigrade.”

_There’s… tardigrade…you?_

The tardigrade let’s out another shriek.

Pain explodes throughout Ash’s body and it feels like his atoms are being split apart. He screams.

There’s a huge bang then suddenly everything stops. Like dead stops.

The change of pace is just as jarring, but at least the pain is gone… sorta. Ash can still feel it, like a phantom pain of sorts – lingering but not actually there. He still has a headache though and the queasiness is very much still present.

“Hugh?” he calls out, but there’s no answer.

The tardigrade lets out a small squeal that to Hugh’s ears sounds terrified. It then vanishes. Great.

Ash still has no idea what the purpose of that whole ordeal was.

There’s a banging on the door.

Hardly surprising considering the noise the tardigrade made, but Ash has no idea what he’s going to say. This isn’t even his storage unit.

He gets up…

Then immediately blacks out.

...

He wakes up with a massive headache and aches and pains running throughout his body. It takes him a few seconds to remember what happened and he wishes he was back asleep.

He opens his eyes and finds that he’s in a brig, which is what he expected. This is not going to look good on his record. Oh who is he kidding? His record is already tarnished beyond repair anyways.

He sits up on the hard bed and looks around. Nothing to clarify which prison he’s in. And his stuff’s missing. Damn, they probably confiscated his drugs. How’s he supposed to contact Hugh now?

He walks over to the edge of his prison cell and looks out the shield window. No one’s there, which isn’t surprising – you can’t break out of these things – though he hopes someone comes soon. Even to just give him some water. Painkillers would be nice too, but he isn’t going to hold out hope.

The door opens and in comes a Starfleet security personal. Wait, if he’s at a Starfleet facility they must view his crimes as serious. Great. He curses the tardigrade. And of course the creature had to flake out the minute things got bad. This is what he gets for blindly following an under-researched creature.

The woman is surprised to see that he’s up and immediately turns and leaves the room.

“Wait!” he calls after her, but it’s to no avail.

A few moments later the door opens again and this time a Captain enters the room. Wait. A Captain? That means that they are on a Starfleet ship… but why? How long has he been out?

“Ash Tyler,” they say and there’s hate in their eyes. This isn’t going to go well. “Why did you attack our ship?”

“What?” Attack their ship? What is going on?

The Captain’s lips go into a thin line. “A week ago you attempted to contact the Discovery and now you have forcibly entered our ship despite –”

“Wait. The Discovery? You’re saying I’m on the Discovery?”

The Captain frowns. “I would advise you to not play games.”

“No you don’t understand. I didn’t try and attack, I… how did I get here?”

“I can see you won’t be cooperative. Know that once we get back into Federation territory you will be imprisoned for life.”

“What? I don’t… please. I was in Paris. I don’t know how I got here.” How on Earth could he be on the Discovery?

“Well at least you admit that. You did steal Lieutenant-Commander Paul Stamets’ storage unit after all.”

“Okay, I was in there, but I didn’t steal it… at least not yet. I blacked out before I could do anything.” And yeah it probably isn’t the best idea to admit he was going to steal the coffin… but he needs to figure out what’s going on.

Wait. Did they say storage unit?

“What do you mean steal the storage unit?”

The Captain stares at Ash incredulously tinged with annoyance and that same hate. “Being uncooperative again. That will not bode well for you.”

They turn and exit the room.

“Wait! I don’t understand! How did I get here?”

But he’s talking to air.

He sits down on his bed and runs his hands though his hair trying to figure out what happened.

He entered the storage unit which had the tardigrade in it along with Hugh’s body. He took the drug at the tardigrade’s behest and something weird happened to him. A lot of pain… and the tardigrade disappeared.

Wait.

Could the tardigrade have transported him to the Discovery? Like the whole storage unit? But how? And why?

It’s the only thing that makes sense… or makes the most sense in this whole mess. Unless people are trying to frame him, which also is possible. But how did the tardigrade do that? Doesn’t it need spores to transport from place to place? There had been no spores, just the drugs.

Again, those drugs. This all started because of those damn things, maybe they were making him go mad. That actually made a fair amount of sense.

Maybe there never had been a tardigrade!

No. There had been, even if he did hallucinate, if he had been the one to attack those Klingons he would be dead now not just banished. Ugh! All of this was not helping his headache.

The door opens.

Ash stands up and a wave of relief washes over him as he sees Tilly come in carrying a tray of food.

“Tilly! Please, can you tell me what’s going on? I don’t understand.”

But Tilly doesn’t even look Ash in the eye. She quickly sends the food through the barrier then turns and exits the room without a word.

“Tilly!”

Have they all turned against him? Without even talking to him? Surely Tilly of all people would hear both sides.

He looks down at his meal in despair. A sandwich and some water.

He drinks the water gratefully, but isn’t all the hungry so picks at the sandwich… which is when he notices that one of the pieces of cheese feels weird. He opens up the sandwich and written in faint white on the pale yellow is a message. So all is not lost!

_They are always watching us. Be careful what you say. Eat this – leave no evidence behind._

Who is always watching? What did that mean? What is happening on this ship? The message just created a boat load more questions, but at least it gave Ash some hope that he’s not alone.

He does as he’s told and eats the sandwich. The weird cheese is very chewy and sort of ruins the taste of the rest of it, but he’s not going to complain.

A few hours later the doors open again and in steps Michael.

Ash’s heart skips a beat. She’s still as beautiful as he remembered, if not more so and he longs to… he doesn’t know, but he wants to comfort her, though he knows him being here is probably doing more harm to her than good.

He hates this.

She holds herself stiffly, keeping her face carefully blank and goes to stand at the centre of the window, about five feet away.

“Why did you steal Lieutenant-Commander Stamets’ storage unit?” she asks without preamble.

“I didn’t steal it. I entered the unit but didn’t steal anything.” He wishes he could plead to Michael, tell her everything, but he remembers the message. _Be careful what you say._ He needs to know more about what’s going on before he reveals his true mission.

“Fine. Why did you enter the unit?”

At this Ash blanks. What can he say? Certainly not the truth, but he can’t really think of anything else that wouldn’t criminalize him. He has to say something though. “After I was banished from Qo’noS I had no where to go. I needed a place to store my stuff and didn’t have much money so I thought using Paul’s storage unit would suffice until I got on my feet again.”

Michael’s jaw ticks, but other than that her face remains impassive. “Why were you banished from Qo’noS?”

Should he tell her about the tardigrade? Well it wouldn’t be hard to find out about the attack if they chose to look.

“A tardigrade appeared in the city I was staying at and attacked several citizens. The Klingons believed that I was behind the attack, but since there was not enough evidence to prove that they only banished me instead of executed me.”

Another jaw tick.

“How did you know where the Discovery was?”

“I didn’t. I’ve been trying to contact you for over a week now. I only got through once but your Captain cut off communication and blocked me. I had no idea where you were. Cornwell told me you were on a secret mission and were only to be contacted in case of emergency.”

“And you decided to ignore that?”

“Well I was going to, but I hadn’t tried yet. I don’t know how I got here. I’m serious.”

“Then how did you end up here with Lieutenant-Commander Stamet’s storage unit?”

Wait… “the storage unit is here?”

Michael’s eyes widen and she takes a step back. She quickly regains control of herself though. “Answer the question.”

“Wait! That means Hugh-”

“ANSWER the question,” Michael cuts him off and her eyes contain a warning look. _Be careful what you say._ Right.

“I’m sorry Commander. I can’t answer that question.”

It’s silent for several long moments.

“What is the substance found in your bag?”

“Umm, recreational drugs.”

Michael seems taken aback. Ash wishes he could tell her the whole truth. He’s fine. Really.

“They have been analyzed and are unlike any drugs we know.”

“They’re Klingon.”

Michael nods, but says no more. Ash looks down feeling ashamed though he doesn’t have to reason to be. It helps with the act though.

“The Captain would like to know how you found us.”

“Tell them I don’t know. I’m sorry Commander.”

Michael nods, then turns and leaves the room. Ash watches her leave, his heart breaking a little.

No one else comes to visit so he just sits with his thoughts. A cadet brings another meal several hours later and a few hours after that the lights dim. Not completely, but enough that he can fall asleep.

He’s woken up by the lights suddenly flaring up far brighter than normal, then just as suddenly dimming till he can hardly see anything.

He stands up abruptly and looks around. The doors open and someone comes in, but it’s too dark to make out who.

His heart starts going into overdrive. Is someone coming here to kill him? Beat him up? Try and get the truth out of him.

“Hello? Who’s there?”

There is no answer, but the person moves around and it sounds like they’re setting something up.

A bomb perhaps?

He steps as close as he can to the barrier. “Whoever you are –”

“Lights, 30%.”

The lights come on and it’s Paul. Ash stares at him in shock.

He doesn’t look well… actually that’s an understatement. He looks horrible. He looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks, and he’s lost weight, lots of it, and if it is possible he seems paler, skin practically translucent. It’s uncomfortable to stare at him for long.

Instead, Ash directs his attention to the device at his side. It doesn’t look like a bomb, or at least not one that Ash’s encountered, and he’s encountered a lot of bombs.

“It blocks out the video feeds making it seem like you are still sleeping and no one is in here along with cutting out all noise.”

Oh.

He glances back over at Paul who is staring at him intently. “Why did you bring Hugh’s body here?” he demands, a bit of hysteria evident in his voice.

Ash really hopes Paul’s device works or else he’s going to be recorded sounding really mad. “Well I wasn’t trying to get the body to you this way. I would have done it more legally, but… I’m not sure what happened. One minute I was in your storage unit, the next I’m here.”

“Why?” Paul demands again.

Right, here goes nothing. “I may have a way to bring him back.”

Paul stares at him for several long moments then immediately goes over to his machine, obviously with the intent of turning it off.

“I was going to ask your permission. It’s what he wants.”

That freezes Paul.

“What who wants?”

Ash winces. “Hugh… I can contact him, or well could.”

Something manic gleams in Paul’s eyes. “How?”

“The drugs that were found in my bag.”

He can see the wheels turning in Paul’s mind and knows he’s about to go do something incredibly stupid.

“It won’t work on you.” He actually has no idea if they will work or not, but Hugh will kill him if he let’s Paul try them.

“Why not?” Paul sneers, though it sounds more desperate than anything.

“They’re Klingon drugs. They work for Klingons, but not humans.”

“You’re human.”

“Not really.”

That stops Paul short, but in doing so Ash has to watch the hope totally drain away from him. “I have to see him. I have to be with him. I can’t live like this anymore.”

So much for Hugh’s belief that Paul was moving on. It’s heartbreaking to witness.

“Listen, Hugh said that all he needs to come back is a mycelial network pathway between his body and his soul I guess you would call it, and a stabilizer to make sure he stays on the path.”

And it’s a problem that Paul can grasp onto and work with; Ash can practically see the cogs in his brain start to work, coming up with hypothesis and possible outcomes.  

“Discovery has shut off my research so we can’t do it here, but if we can get to –”

“Shut off your research? Why would they do that?”

“Because they’re bastards!” Paul shouts, then calms down and almost looks guilty. “And I wasn’t doing my job.”

“Oh?”

“I was trying to find a way to bring Hugh back – on my own time of course, but I got careless, and Captain Nuvo was not amused.”

“What is it with your Captain anyways? What’s with all the secrecy.”

Paul actually looks haunted. “Bad things are happening. We’re prisoners on the ship, every one of us.”

“Does Starfleet know?”

“They’ve infiltrated Starfleet.”

“But what bad things?”

“I…” he pauses, eyes going wide. “I have to go.”

“Wait!”

But Paul practically races out the door with his machine.

A few moments later the lights dim down to 20%, and once again Ash is left with more questions and no answers.

...

The next day passes at an achingly slow pace. Cadets or Ensigns bring him his meals and the Captain comes in for a frustrating questioning period again, but that’s it. He doesn’t see anyone that he used to know and though he’s bored he’s also worried.

Why did Paul say they were all prisoners? Who is this Captain and what are they doing?

His third meal of the day has come and gone when the red alert suddenly rings out around the ship.

Ash shoots to his feet, going to the border of his prison, hoping someone will come tell him what’s going on, but it’s a hopeless wish at best.

A few moments later the ship shudders and Ash stumbles to the wall to avoid falling. He decides to stay against it as the ship lurches again. The tray that held his meal goes flying, along with the bowl, plate, and cup.

The lights flicker. Power must be draining.

What on Earth was happening?

The ship shudders again, badly. The floor tilts upwards and suddenly the gravity is gone.

The barrier that holds Ash in the cell blinks out.

Finally, some good luck.

He kicks off the wall in the direction of the exit and floats over, just as he exits the cell the gravity turns back on and he lands on the floor in a giant thump. The barrier comes back on as well.

He exits the room…

And bumps right into Tilly.

She looks at him in surprise then grabs his wrist and leads him down the corridor at a fast pace. The alarms are still ringing out everywhere, but there is no one around.

The ship shudders again; Tilly falls into Ash making him stumble over as well into the wall. The ship lurches and they both fall on the floor.

“Shit, shit, crap, fuck, fuckity, fuck.” Tilly’s language has certainly gotten more colourful.

“What’s going on?” Ash asks as they get to their feet. He’s certainly been asking that question a lot lately.

“I don’t know,” she snaps continuing down the corridor till they reach a turbo lift.

“How can you not know?”

“I’m not allowed on the bridge,” she says and Ash can hear the hurt in her voice.

“Like right now…?”

“No. Ever. Only people assigned to a bridge station can go up there unless called.”

“But that’s not Starfleet regulations.”

“Well in case you haven’t realized it by now, we aren’t exactly following Starfleet’s direction.”

“Is this another Lorca situation?”

“No, it’s not like Lorca… I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t good.” Ash can hear the frustration in her voice. He wants to reach out and hug her, but he figures the action would be unappreciated at the moment.

The turbo lift doors open and she pulls him down the corridor till they reach the spore drive lab.

They enter…

And it’s empty.

There’s no spore drive, no containers of spores or consoles set up. Nothing.

“What…?”

“Captain Nuvo ordered everything to be shut down.”

So Paul had meant everything. Well shit.

“No one checks in here. You can stay here for now, but I suggest you leave this ship the way you came before this battle is over,” Tilly continues.

“Wait, what? Leave? I’m not leaving.”

“They’re going to notice you’ve gone missing and to put it lightly, that’s not going to go well for you.”

“Then bring me back to the brig.”

Tilly shakes her head and there are tears in her eyes. “This way you can at least be free, even if you’re on the run.”

“Tilly…”

“How did you do it?” she demands desperately.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you need equipment? Is it the drugs?”

Ash shakes his head. “No, I don’t have any idea how I got on this ship. One minute I was in Paris in the storage room with the tardigrade, then the next –”

“Wait, tardigrade?”

“Yeah, it’s been following me around for some reason…”

Then it suddenly clicks. There is no attack, at least not a real one. There was no gravity loss or power failure, this was all just a stunt.

What hurts the worst is that it’s Tilly who’s doing this. Tilly, who was the first one to accept him, the one who always had a kind word to say to people and could find the joy out of the smallest things. The one who sat at his table even after everything.

“Tilly, why are you doing this to me?”

Tilly stares at him, tears falling down her cheeks. “Please just tell me how you got here.”

“I can’t.”

“Please.”

Ash shakes his head. It does hurt – this betrayal, but he doesn’t blame her. The Captain must be holding something over all of them.

He exits the room.

“Where are you going?” Tilly asks in fear as she follows him.

“Back to the brig.”

That takes her by surprise. “Why?”

“Because I will not play your Captain’s games. I’ve been used as a pawn far too often. I will not be used that way again.”

Tilly flinches, but she presses on. “But why are you here?”

They enter the turbo lift.

“Tilly, I’m no longer going to say anything on the matter. Tell that to your Captain.”

“You’re going to end up in a Federation prison for the rest of your life.”

“Then so be it,” Ash says.

The turbo lift doors open and Ash walks back to the brig and stands in front of his cell. He waits for Tilly to open the barrier so he can go in, but she doesn’t.

“Tilly.”

“I’m sorry,” she says and he can hear the pain in her voice though he doesn’t face her. “I didn’t want to.”

“I know, it’s okay,” Ash says.

The barrier drops down and Ash steps back inside. He hears the hum of it coming back to place and let’s out a breath. And really, he’s fine with being in here – after all an unexplained person suddenly appearing on the ship is cause for concern and should be put in the brig. It’s just how he’s been treated and the secrecy behind it all and now this little stunt. No. Something bigger is at play here and until he knows what that is, he will not be used.

The door opens and closes and when he turns back around the outer room is empty. The sight of the empty room drops his mood and reminds him just how lonely his life is now.

He goes and lays down on the bed, only to feel a hard nob under his pillow. Slowly he turns around to not draw suspicion from the cameras and feels the thing. The texture immediately indicates to him that it’s the Klingon drug. Somehow, someone managed to get him a piece.

Now, the only question is, is this part of the Captain’s plan, or is it an outside job?

...

He has no way of shaving the drug down and he doesn’t want to eat it whole like he did last time so for now he just leaves it where it is. Poor Hugh though, he’s probably worried sick considering the last time they interacted…

The light’s go dark again and the door opens. Paul steps inside with his device and a few minutes later calls the lights up to 30%. He looks saner today, if a bit on the manic side, but the dark circles under his eyes are as evident as ever.

“Do you ever sleep?” Ash can’t help but ask.

Paul scowls at him. “Did you get it?”

“Yes. Clever.”

“Have you taken it?” he asks almost desperately.

“No, it needs to be shaven down.”

Paul curses then fumbles around in his bag before pulling out a multipurpose tool. He pushes it through the barrier.

Ash stares at it. “You want me to do this now?”

“I would prefer if you let me take it myself, but since you won’t I’ll have to live with this.”

“Who was the one who gave this to me then?” Ash asks for it’s obvious that if Paul got his hands on the drug he would ignore all of Ash’s and Hugh’s warnings.

Paul scowls again. “Saru. He’s the only one who could and he refused to give me a piece, the bastard.”

Ash smirks. At least the Kelpian is responsible, but that means this was planned. “Wait was Tilly’s thing…?”

Paul sighs. “It’s complicated. Captain Novo did order her to pull that stunt, but only because Michael persuaded them that this would be a good way to get some information. Then while that was happening, Saru snuck in with my device and left the drug under your pillow. Good touch about the tardigrade by the way. That will send them on a goose chase.”

“I didn’t make that up.”

Paul stares at him. “What?”

“A tardigrade has been following me around and it was with me in the storage unit.”

“That’s impossible.”

“That’s what happened.”

Paul groans. “So you’re saying a tardigrade transported you here?”

“Well I don’t know if that’s exactly what happened, but it seems like the most plausible scenario at the moment.”

“Perfect.”

“How did you think I got here?”

“I don’t know. Hadn’t really thought about it, more found it amusing that you being here is driving the Captain up the wall. That’s nice.”

Ash nods. “I have to apologize to Tilly.”

“She’s fine, she understands – actually she feels horrible about how she treated you. We figured you would know it was a trick, but I guess you haven’t been around the Captain that long, so yeah. Sorry about that.”

“What is going on with the Captain?”

“I honestly don’t know. I’m not allowed up on the bridge –”

“Wait, that’s actually happening?”

“Yep.”

“What the fuck?”

“Yeah, it’s messed up. Michael and Saru do their best to keep us informed, but well, their movements are very monitored. Michael and Tilly aren’t even allowed to share the same room anymore.”

“This sounds worse than Lorca.” Ash can’t believe he’s saying that. “How come you’re letting this happen?”

Paul is silent for several moments then looks up, eyes haunted. “The Captain has a lot of influence over people. It’s best to do as they say.”

Ash doesn’t know how to respond to that.

“Anyways, please take it.”

Right, the drug. Ash uses the tool kit and crushes up a bit of the piece. He then makes to hand the tool back but Paul shakes his head. “Might come in handy.”

Ash can’t argue with that. He puts it under his pillow with the rest of the drug. He then pauses. “It will just look like I’ve gone to sleep to you.”

Paul shakes his head. “I don’t care.”

Very well. Ash snorts up the substance and let’s himself be carried away.

He lands once again in the in between world. Hugh appears far faster than he did the other two times.

“Ash! Are you alright? What happened?”

“You have no idea,” Ash sighs. “I think a tardigrade transported me to the Discovery where I’m currently locked up in the brig and the Captain is this dictator making everyone walk around on egg shells, oh and Paul still very much loves you and is desperate to get you back.”

Hugh is silent for several long moments as he stares at Ash. Ash feels kind of uncomfortable, but he lets him soak in all that information.

“Tardigrade,” Hugh finally says.

And… “what?”

“The tardigrade brought you to the Discovery.”

“Well that’s what I think happened, I’m not sure. It wanted me to eat the drug whole, which I hadn’t done before and it was weird, why I could only hear you, not see you that time and then the next thing I know I wake up in the brig of the Discovery.”

“You need… that’s it. The tardigrade is the key to bringing me back. Where is it now?”

“I have no idea. It seemed like it was in pain or something, so was I for that matter, and then it disappeared. Hasn’t returned since.”

“Dammit!” Hugh exclaims, “we need it, it knows, it’s helping.”

“The tardigrade is helping?” Ash repeats. He’s having a hard time understanding how it all fits together.

“Yes, it makes sense, it’s connection to the mycelial network is far more enhanced than Paul’s own connection. It can probably see between the veil. It knows… it knows… ugh! I need Paul.”

He then freezes and looks up at Ash in agony. “He knows.”

Ash nods his head.

“Is he okay?”

Honestly, Ash has no idea how to respond to that. Does he lie? Give partial truth? Break it gently?

“He actually seemed pretty sane when I last talked to him.” Okay that could have come out a lot better.

Hugh doesn’t respond for a long time. So long that Ash starts to get concerned. He’s just about to prompt him when he finally speaks.

“Is he hurting himself?”

Shit.

“I’m not a doctor…”

“Answer my question,” Hugh snarls and there’s actually something dangerous in his eyes.

“Are you sure you want to know?”

Hugh lets out a broken gasp and Ash understands now why Hugh hadn’t wanted Paul involved. For then he wouldn’t have to actually think about how his death is affecting his love. It is such a gruesome thought to live with.

“Let’s not focus on that,” Ash hurries to say, “you were saying about the tardigrade?”

“I should move on, I shouldn’t stay here. People don’t come back from the dead.”

“He needs you!” Ash blurts out desperately. “He was a wreck the first time I saw him, I’m not going to lie. But when hope was reintroduced you can already see the improvement. He will truly fade away if you leave and take that hope with you.”

Hugh squeezes his eyes shut and it’s a couple of tense moments, but then he sighs and opens them. “You’re right. I’m just being selfish.”

Ash wouldn’t consider any of Hugh’s motives intrinsically selfish, but he lets it drop and moves on.

“Okay so the plan now is to find the tardigrade and then what?”

“Talk to Paul about it. I… I think the tardigrade and him can work together to make a pathway. I’m not sure, it’s not my area of expertise.”

Ash nods. At least they now have a direction. He feels the beginnings of a tug. “I have to go now, but is there any message you want me to pass to Paul?”

Hugh looks uncertain for a moment, but then becomes resolved. “Tell him I love him, but tell him it’s okay if he can’t do it or moves on or gives up. I want him to be happy. Remember the one year.”

Ash only has time to nod before he’s pulled back.

…

He sits up, blinking as he becomes aware of his surroundings once again.

“What happened? Is he alright? Did you see him? Is he hurt?”

“Just hold on a second,” Ash groans, rubbing his eyes. He decides to get to business first. “He said we need to find the tardigrade and that you two can form a pathway together or something? He said you would understand.”

“Of course!” Paul’s eyes light up and Ash can see the gears start working in his head. “If we combine, the tardigrade is sort of like an amplifier, and it’s already shown that it can transport other people with it bringing you here, so we just need a surge of additional shrooms, and… and… yes! The tardigrade would actually work as a two in one as the stabilizer since it can –”

Paul’s com beeps.

They both stare at it in horror.

It beeps again.

Paul takes a breath and then opens the connection. “Stamets here.”

“Get to your room now,” Airiam says. The connection cuts off.

Paul and Ash share a look then Paul quickly springs into action packing his stuff away. He’s out the door in under a minute.

Like before, the lights go out for a second before coming back on at 20%.

Ash stumbles over to his bed and the second his head hits the pillow, he’s out like a light.

...

He’s woken up by the sound of a giant explosion.

The room lurches to the side and he’s thrown off the bed. His first thought is that this is another trick, which would’ve been pathetic, but then he registers the screams and he knows this is no game.

He’s on his feet in a flash and grabs the multipurpose tool out from under his pillow along with the rest of the drug which he sticks in his shoe. The tool won’t do much good, but he feels better having some kind of weapon.

Even still, he hates feeling so helpless. Any second a hit could tear into his cell and he will be sucked off into space without another word and he can’t do anything about it. He paces around to stave off his frustration and anxiety, but it doesn’t help much. Another huge hit rocks the ship and Ash swears he can smell smoke.

The door open and in comes Michael. She’s hurt – a big wound going down the side of her head, blood dripping onto her uniform.

“Michael, are you alright?”

She opens the barrier. “I’m fine,” she answers tersely and grabs his wrist pulling him out of the room. He follows along dutifully and this time he can see the damage. Smoke is coming out of vents, people are carrying the injured and alarms are blaring.

Michael sprints to the turbo lift, pulling Ash behind her.

“Deck 9.”

“Michael…”

“Shut up,” she says and so he doesn’t say anything more.

On Deck 9 she drags him down several corridors till they arrive at an escape pod. She enters the code and pushes him inside.

He nearly trips over the coffin lying right in front of the door. “What the fuck?”

“Careful!” Paul calls out. He’s already strapped into one of the side seats.

Ash steps over the coffin and looks around. Michael comes in behind him, closing the door.

“Can you pilot?” she asks.

“Yes, but where to?”

She hands him a pad with coordinates.

“Alright then.”

“As you know there’s a battle happening out there,” Michael says, “be careful.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice.

Tilly comes into the back room from the pilot’s area. “We’re all ready.”

“Okay, Saru, Joann, Keyla, Rhys, Bryce, and Airiam will meet us there. Let’s go.”

“So, we’re just going to abandon ship?” Ash asks, and though he’s fine with that, it does seem a bit out of character for the others.

“This is the only way we can save the Federation,” Michael says, but there is a bit of a waver in her voice. “The Captain still soon go to warp anyways, but we need to be gone by then.”

And there’s so many questions he wants to ask, but he knows there’s no time and he can ask them later, so without further ado, he takes the pilot’s chair and starts up the engines.

It’s the Romulans that are attacking, but Ash doesn’t have time to question why that is. He’s too busy avoiding fire and making sure they don’t get blown to pieces. He manages to steer their shuttle around the Discovery till they are behind the ship and from there it’s just keeping an eye out for stray shots that might be missed.

He notices that there is another shuttle about 400m ahead – must be the one with Saru and the others. He looks over the coordinates. It’s not long, about a two-hour shuttle trip.

He cuts off any tracking abilities the Discovery might use then contacts the shuttle up ahead. “This is Ash Tyler, everything is going according to plan. You?”

“Oh good, Detmer here. Yes, we’re all on board and heading to destination. We’ll touch base when we get there, alright?”

“Copy that.”

He ends the transmission and settles in for the ride. A few moments later Michael comes and joins him, sitting in the chair beside him. It’s quiet for several long moments and Ash isn’t sure if he should say anything. Does she want to talk to him? Or does she just need to see where they’re going. Or maybe Stamets was annoying her.

“Why did you go with her?” she finally asks.

He doesn’t need to ask who she’s talking about, even if he really isn’t in the mood to talk about such a topic. He’s much more interested in what’s been happening with her, but that’s not his place. “I’m never going to be part of Starfleet again and honestly I still don’t know who I am. I want to be Ash Tyler, but I’m also Voq, or at least he’s a part of me. I wanted to see how that would work.”

“So you forgive her?”

He takes him a moment to respond. The pain and hurt that still keeps him awake most nights hasn’t gone away. L’Rell might have balanced out his mind, but she didn’t take away the memories. When working with her to help make alliances with the Federation he forced himself to see her only as a business partner. She wanted more though and always tried to make herself a bigger part of his life on Qo’noS. Needless to say, seeing her so often had not helped with his mental health.

“No,” is what he answers, for that’s the truth.

“So you’re punishing yourself.”

He guesses he sort of was, but he personally doesn’t see it that way. “I needed to figure out who I was.”

“You could have done that without going with her,” Michael says and Ash swears there’s a hint of something darker in her voice.

“I needed to be around Klingons to see how I fit in.”

“And how did that go for you?”

“I’m pretty sure I’ll always be an outsider.”

“I know the feeling,” she says quietly. He glances over at her and can see the tiredness and pain in her features as she stares out the window.

She then looks over at him and smiles sadly. “I hope you find your place.”

“You too.”

She takes a deep breath as if readying herself for something, though Ash can’t think of what. She looks reluctant to say whatever it is on her mind.

“What is it?”

She shakes her head as if convincing herself to go through with it. “Me and Tilly are… we’re seeing each other.”

Oh.

It’s like a kick to the stomach and the pain that grows through him makes his heart clench, but he forces that all down. He knew Michael would eventually move on, he just never really expected to have to witness it. Honestly, he never really expected to see her again, at least not so soon. Perhaps when they were older and bumped into each other at a Federation event thing when old wounds were for the most part healed and they could greet each other as old friends and nothing more. A painful, but livable supposition.

“I’m happy for you two,” he manages to say.

“Thanks,” she says and Ash must be imagining the regret in her voice.

It’s awkward now, though it never really was a comfortable conversation to begin with. Ash continues to stare out the window in silence making sure the shuttle is heading in the right direction and Michael is…

She gets up and heads to the back of the shuttle without another word. Probably for the best.

And he’s happy for them, he really is. Tilly and Michael make an amazing couple.

It’s just… another reminder of everything he’s lost. And what he cannot have.

…

They arrive at the coordinates without any further mishap and park down beside the other Discovery shuttle. There is another unmarked shuttle there which puts Ash on the alert, but he supposes those coordinates had to come from somewhere. He wishes someone would tell him what is going on, but he supposes he hasn’t earned that right.

He goes to the back and nearly bumps into Paul.

“Sorry.”

Paul shakes his head and just thrusts a phaser into his hand before turning abruptly around and going back to his bag and rummaging through it.

It feels good to have a phaser back in his hand again and not just a multi-purpose tool that isn’t supposed to be used as a weapon. He switches the tool out of his holster and is about to just chuck it aside when he thinks better of it. He clips it back to his holster then turns and see’s what the rest are doing.

Tilly is checking over her own phaser, her eyes sharp and focused and Michael has just got of her com with someone. She glances at him briefly and gives him a nod.

“Georgiou is ready to see us.”

Georgiou. What is she doing here? And how was she able to contact them? These questions swirl around in his mind, but he doesn’t get any answers for Michael has already unlocked the shuttle door and stepped out followed by Tilly. Paul, though, stops at Hugh’s coffin which was now moved to the side so not to block anyone’s way. He trails his hand along it, his face a picture of heartbreak and longing.

He jerks his hand back and manages to set his face to stony indifference that if Ash hadn’t just seen it he would have never known that Paul was in such pain. He exits the shuttle without a backwards glance.

Ash sighs and heads towards the exit, but also stops at the coffin. “Soon, I promise.”

Outside Saru and the rest from the other shuttle are all there. Surprisingly Bryce comes up to him and claps him on the shoulder. “How are you doing?” he asks.

“Still alive I guess.”

Bryce laughs. “Yeah, you’re probably feeling pretty lost right about now.”

“No kidding. Georgiou? Why are we talking to her?”

“Not sure, but when Michael and Saru ask me to help, I’m going to.”

“Not a fan of Nuvo either?”

Bryce shakes his head. “Let’s just say you’d think that after the Klingon war things would change, but Starfleet is still corrupt.”

So it’s more a systemic problem then just one rotten Captain. That’s certainly troubling.

“Why are there so many people here?” Georgiou snaps, glaring around at the group of them. Michael steps forward and it’s evident to see that Michael still feels strongly for the mirror version of this person.

“These are all people I trust.”

It’s unexplainable, the relief Ash feels hearing Michael say those words. Michael could have very well just left Ash in the brig on the ship, but no she set up a whole escape mission to bring him with them because she trusts him. Despite everything, at least he still has that.

Georgiou regards them all with contempt, but in the end shrugs her shoulders. “They’ll probably end up being useful.”

“Georgiou, what’s going on?” Michael asks.

“Have you ever heard of Section 31?” Georgiou asks.

Michael shakes her head.

“It’s a sort of underground movement working to ensure that humans aren’t threatened by other species. They spy on Klingons and Androidians, and whoever else to make sure they stay in their place.”

“These species have all signed agreements with the Federation. This is against –” Saru starts to say.

“Oh please not everyone believes in peace and working together. We’ve stopped countless renegade plans and attacks,” Georgiou snaps.

“We’ve. You’re a part of this group?” Michael asks.

“They recruited me, yes,” Georgiou says turning back to Michael, “they put me in charge of keeping tabs on the Ferengi which was boring as fuck. They’re harmless space pirateers for the most part, hardly going to start a war. That’s when I started investigating what other members were doing and that’s where it got interesting. Your Captain Nuvo is a part of 31.”

“Does Starfleet know?” Michael asks.

“I’m not sure, but there are many 31s who work in Starfleet so technically yes. It’s no real surprise that your mission was put under such secret protocols.”

“What was our mission?” Tilly asks.

Georgiou smirks. “To find a back door into Romulan territory.”

Gasps ring out.

Ash feels a wave of anger wash over him. “Are they trying to start another war?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Saru asks.

Georgiou sighs and looks annoyed, but more at herself than anything. She looks back at Michael and Ash understands. After all, he feels the same. “Nuvo’s an idiot and was trying to move too fast. Why the Romulans found your ship when they did. At least Starfleet can still plead ignorance and say that Nuvo was in unchartered territory. If they continued much longer an actual war would likely have broken out.”

“And Discovery would have been the first casualty,” Michael says.

Georgiou tilts her head.

Well shit.

“So what happens now?” Joann asks.

“We’re all considered deserters now in the eyes of the Starfleet,” Saru says. Ash looks around and sees that no one seems surprised by this. They all knew what they were getting into when they abandoned ship, but now they are alone with three shuttles and that’s about it. How are they supposed to do anything?

“The Discovery will likely report back to Starfleet about the battle and report us missing,” Michael says, “we’ll be considered convicts and the only way to clear our names is to provide proof of this Section 31 and what’s it trying to do. Do you have anything concrete?” she asks Georgiou.

“Some stuff, but you’re going to have to do more than that. The Romulans are now going to be angry. I believe you’ll have to enter their territory and warn them. Unless you want a war to start, then I’m sure Section 31 will be glad to have you onboard.”

Michael shakes her head. “That’s not happening. There shouldn’t even be a Section 31.”

“It’s time you stop being naïve.”

“How do you suppose we gain access to Romulan territory?”

Georgiou shrugs. “Not my area.”

Michael takes a deep breath then turns back to the rest of the group turning into the great leader that Ash knows she is. “I want everyone to start brainstorming – come up with potential solutions, plans, and gather as much information as you possibly can.”

Everyone immediately starts moving. Ash, however needs answers.

He walks up to Michael who looks like she’s about to confer with Saru on something, but that will have to wait.

“Michael.”

She looks up and grimaces. “What?”

“I need to know what happened.”

She sighs but knows that he’s right. “Fine, come with me.”

They go back to the shuttle and sit down across from each other. Michael takes a few moments to collect her thoughts then begins.


	2. Part 2: Michael Burnham

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael Burnham finds herself once again caught in a web of lies and secrets. Can she hold herself together and who can she trust?

“Message from the Enterprise, Captain.”

“Open it,” Saru says.

Michael’s heart beats in her throat. She glances over at Sarek and though he is good at not showing it, she can see that he too is both worried and uncomfortable.

The connection is made and Captain Pike comes up on screen, which is expected but also a bit of a relief. She doesn’t know how she would have reacted if Spock had been the one to appear, not that he would have being an ensign, but it was still a possibility.  

“Discovery. We’re sorry to bother you, but our Warp drive is malfunctioning and we need your help.”

An engineering problem. Something she should not have to aid in.

“Of course, just let me check,” Saru says opening the internal com, “Engineering, please send a couple of personnel over to the Enterprise to assist in repairs.”

“Yes captain,” comes the response.

Saru turns back to Pike. “They are on their way.”

“Thank you, we also need your help with something else though.”

Of course they do.

“My Chief Science Officer and several of my science team got caught in an accident and currently our medics do not know how to help them.”

Michael’s heart stops and she glances over at Sarek who is staring at the screen frozen. Could one of them be Spock?

“And you would like our medics to see if they can help?” Saru asks.

“Actually, considering the experiment they were working on involved shrooms we were hoping Lieutenant-Commander Stamets and his team might come take a look.”

A pause. “Of course,” Saru responds.

“Thank you,” Pike says and ends the transmission.

There’s a moment of silence, then, “Very well. Burnham, Stamets, Tilly, please get ready and report to the transporter pad.”

“Yes Captain,” they say and head for the turbo lift. Of course she would be asked to go, though now she’s kind of grateful. For waiting aboard the Discovery not knowing whether Spock is okay or not would drive her up the wall. She looks over at Sarek just before she exits the bridge and he’s staring at her with an emotionless expression, but she’s not fooled. He’s worried and so is she.

In the turbo lift Paul is staring straight ahead while Tilly has an eager smile on her face.

“The Enterprise! The flagship of the fleet! I have always looked up to Captain Pike and now we actually get to meet him,” Tilly blabbers.

It’s cute really, but Michael has a pit in her stomach and she’s not in the mood to hear someone actually be excited about this mission.

“Come on, I can’t be the only one stoked,” Tilly exclaims as they enter the spore drive lab.

Paul looks at Tilly and smiles, but it’s forced and doesn’t reach his eyes. “It is pretty cool.”

“People were hurt,” Michael can’t help but say.

Tilly’s face falls. “Right. What sort of experiment do you think they were working on?”

“We’ll find out,” Paul replies.

They continue talking while Michael follows behind trying to keep it together. While she’s worried that Spock might be injured, there’s also the possibility that he’s not. And if he isn’t… what will she do if she runs into him? She remembers the snide remarks Spock threw at her when they last saw each other. Him mocking her for not being an actual Vulcan and her failure to get admitted into the Vulcan academy. They haven’t talked in years because of that and she has no idea what she’s about to face. Does he still feel the same? But then he joined Starfleet a year after she did. She never asked why, but it was always on the back of her mind and she dared not ask Sarek, knowing there was now bad blood between the two of them.

She steps onto the transporter and takes a deep breath before she’s transferred over to the Enterprise, trying yet failing to steady her nerves.

Captain Pike is there to meet them. “Commander Burnham, Lieutenant-Commander Stamets, Ensign Tilly, thank you for coming aboard.”

“Of course, Captain,” Michael says, immediately sinking into duty. “So, what exactly happened.”

Captain Pike leads them through the ship as he talks. “As you know Starfleet is looking at recreating the spore drive and my Chief Science Officer wanted to head the project. I can’t tell you what exactly they were working on, but it caused a huge explosion that shot out our warp drive and injured my Chief Science Officer and his two assistants.”

Paul’s countenance seems to grow darker with every word Captain Pike says. He remains silent though.

“We’ll see what we can find,” Michael reassures, but she is also concerned by Pike’s story. The spores aren’t explosive substances naturally so they must have been partnering it with a dangerous material which wouldn’t make much sense. All of their research indicated that the spores need to be as unaffected by outside substances as possible.

They arrive at the engine room to find it a complete mess. The Discovery’s engineers were already busy trying to fix things, but Michael can already tell that this will be more than a day job. Pike leads them over to the area sectioned off where the supposed experiment was taking place.

Once he’s assured that they are comfortable and have everything they need he leaves. Michael looks over the mess not knowing where to start.

“This was sabotage,” Paul says without preamble.

“What do you mean?” Tilly asks, poking at the charred remains of… something.

“You can’t create this much damage with spores unless you are trying to do this and know how for that matter. Sure certain mushrooms are poisonous and release gasses that can cause harm, but they don’t react explosively. It takes a lot of effort to do that and it doesn’t happen by just messing around idiotically.”

“Perhaps they thought if they can create an explosion with the spores it will trigger a spore drive jump?” Tilly muses.

“They have my research,” Paul scowls, “they would know that would be a stupid idea.”

They get down to work and as Paul said, it readily becomes apparent that this was no accidental explosion. Question was, why and who was the one who triggered it.

“I’m going to see if I can talk to the Chief Science Officer,” Michael says three hours in.

Paul doesn’t look up from his work, but Tilly does looking concerned. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Of course.” Tilly doesn’t look convinced, but Michael forces a smile. “Check on the engineers, will you?”

She exits the engineering room and makes her way to the sick bay. It’s a bit different layout to the Discovery, but Michael manages to find her way easily enough. She steps inside and despite herself stops short.

There laying on one of the beds is Spock with horrible burn marks visible on his face and hands and he’s unconscious. Somehow, she ends up beside his bed though she doesn’t remember moving. She almost reaches for his hand before remembering that he’s a Vulcan and they don’t do that. “What happened to you?” she whispers. Better question, why haven’t they gotten rid of the burn marks yet.

She looks up for a doctor and it’s then that she sees two others also laid out on beds, both with burns on their bodies. A doctor is checking the readings of one of them so she approaches. “What is their condition?”

The doctor looks up, her eyes tight and tired; they flick over Michael’s uniform recognizing it to be the Discovery. “We don’t know, and the regenerators aren’t healing the burns.”

“Why not?”

“Again, we don’t know. They are resisting treatment for some reason.”

“Were they awake at any point after the explosion?”

“No, they came in unconscious.”

Michael’s com link beeps. “Burnham here.”

“Starfleet is requesting that we transport the Enterprise to Vulcan’s Starfleet base for repairs and we are assigned the mission that the Enterprise was currently heading on,” Saru says. She gets them towing the ship, but going on their mission? That isn’t usual.

“Very well.”

“They also request that all Discovery personnel return back to the Discovery immediately.”

“What?”

But they are likely looking at sabotage here, and the fact that none of the people working on the experiment can be healed screams suspicious.

“It’s Starfleet orders,” Saru says and Michael wants to curse.

“Saru. There is something happening here, please – let us stay onboard.”

“I can’t, I’m sorry – they’re asking for verification.”

Captain Pike enters the sick bay. “Ah Burnham, the rest of your team are transporting over. You should be making your way over as well.”

She looks at Pike wondering if he has something to do with all of this. He doesn’t seem like the type to have nefarious purposes, but then again, they had all trusted Lorca.

Pike goes over to Spock’s bed. “You’re his sister are you not?”

“Yes sir.”

“No need to be so formal. I’m not your Captain.”

“Sir, may I speak freely?”

Pike grins good naturedly. “Of course.”

“I do not believe the explosion was an accident.”

“It wasn’t.”

Michael stares at him. “Beg your pardon sir?”

“Walk with me,” Pike says and he exits the sick bay. Michael turns off the com and follows him, though she looks back one last time at Spock. Despite everything between them she hates to see him like this and she hopes that he recovers.

“There is something going on at Starfleet and it’s been festering for awhile. This mission, it’s going into unchartered space close to Romulan territory and they want the spore drive to explore it for whatever reason, but they’re getting impatient, hence this.”

“The spore drive is for quick transport, if you’re trying to charter space, it’s seems counterproductive.”

“That’s the thing. The mission on paper isn’t the same as what they want. None of this was coincidence. Your ship was always going to take on this mission some way or another and none of us know why.”

“What do we do about it?”

“Keep our eyes open and try and prevent another war.”

Michael stares at Pike. “War? You mean –”

Pike shakes his head. “There are too many secrets, too many coincidences. Be careful.”

They reach the transporter room. Michael steps onto one of the pads.

“Why do you think they assigned the Discovery a new captain instead of letting Saru lead?” Pike asks.

The transporter energizes before she can respond, and Michael is whisked back to the Discovery left with questions and concerning information that she doesn’t know what to do with.

…

Michael sits down on her bed, everything just now washing over her. Once she got back to the Discovery they all had a debrief and she voiced her concerns which Paul and Tilly correlated. They all agreed to keep vigil, but for now follow through with what Starfleet wants of them.

Sarek doesn’t ask how Spock is. She’s both disappointed and relieved. Their problems are best dealt with by themselves.

Still, now everything is more or less normal – they’re in warp and will arrive on Vulcan the next day. For now, she has a moment to breathe, and that is when she gets overwhelmed.

The first thing that hits her is Spock. Seeing him lying on that bed motionless makes her heart clench – that’s her little brother. She took care of him when Amanda had business to attend to, she helped him with his studies, she answered his questions when he was a curious kid not ruined by the constant bullying he faced. In a way though they both faced bullying he had it worse since he is mixed. Not one thing or another. A spectacle of sorts that was unheard of before him.

And that was the thing that drove them apart.

The words he said to her still pierce her even though she tries not to think of it and she hates that she’s still affected by them. Perhaps it’s because he’s right. She is a human and she can fit in… well sort of… to human society without much fuss. She does belong in Starfleet. Spock will never have that same experience, she doubts he will find a world where he perfectly belongs.

She wonders how he’s faired in Starfleet. She still wonders why he chose to join at all. And because of his choices he’s now unconscious in a med bay.

She has to get her mind off this.

She turns her head and catches sight of the slip knot. Instantly her stomach clenches and tears form in her eyes. She hates this, she feels weak, she feels confused, she… he hurt her, he tried to kill her, yet she still misses him. She still wants to see him smile, to hear his laugh, to hold his hand.

She wants, she wants, she wants, and yet she was the one who pushed him away. And he went with L’Rell of all people.

She doesn’t understand it.

The door opens and Michael jerks upright, wiping her eyes. Tilly takes one look at her and isn’t fooled for she goes over and sits down beside her and pulls her into a hug.

She’s frozen for several seconds, the comfort of a friend foreign to her, but Tilly is gently stroking her back and her presence is warm and comforting and it just slots everything into place. She curls into Tilly, her head laying on her shoulder and she lets it out – the tears, pain and stress that has been building inside of her for so long, probably since her parents died, and Tilly remains there through it all without a complaint. Her tether in the dark.

…

She’s in her dress uniform standing beside Saru waiting for Captain Nuvo to come aboard and brief them on their mission. As soon as they arrived at Vulcan the Enterprise was whisked away and she still doesn’t know Spock’s status. They still aren’t receiving any information either which drives her mad. This secrecy was the reason they almost got Qo’noS blown up. She doesn’t want to stir the pot just yet, what with her only just getting her Commander status back, but she won’t stay silent for long if this keeps up.

Captain Nuvo beams onboard and goes shake their hands. There is something distinctly frosty about them though Michael knows better than to judge right away. After all, she most certainly hadn’t been the picture of warmth when she first joined Starfleet.

After preliminary introductions Nuvo invites Saru and Michael into their office. Perhaps they will now get answers.

“We have a tough mission ahead of us and I expect you two to keep the crew inline and following orders.”

“What is the mission?”

“We are going off into unchartered territory. We don’t know what we’ll find or encounter and I expect extreme discipline from all sections.”

“Starfleet has always gone exploring the unknown, what makes this mission so different?” Saru asks.

“You need not concern yourself with that. I’m the Captain and I expect everyone to follow my orders. Is that understood? If I find either of you not doing your job satisfactorily, I will replace you.”

“This ship will function better if we know what we are heading into. We just had a Captain whose goals were nefarious; all of us would appreciate openness,” Michael says.

“I am not Captain Lorca. As long as you follow orders we will get along fine. Dismissed.”

Michael opens her mouth to argue, but Saru reaches out and squeezes her arm. She looks over at him and he subtly shakes his head and gently steers her out of the room. They are silent as they walk down the corridors until they reach his quarters and he lets her in. He doesn’t say anything until the door is shut tightly beside them.

“Who on this ship do you trust?”

“You, Tilly, and Stamets.”

“That’s it?”

And yes, with a crew of over 100 that doesn’t seem like a lot, but she has never been a social person and with all the events that have happened she hasn’t bothered making new friends. She doesn’t really want to either.

“Who do you trust?” she counters.

“I would also include the main bridge crew.”

“Okay then. Why are you bringing this up?”

“It’s best to know who your allies are. I sense danger around our new Captain and I think it’s best to prove cautious.”

“I agree, but we want to be careful, we don’t want to stir up false distrust.”

“Of course. But we should still talk to those we do trust.”

“Right.”

And it’s sad that they are already on edge, but so far Starfleet has not given them a reason not to be.

Michael returns to her room to find Tilly already there eagerly waiting for her. “So? How’s the new Captain.”

“Shady and dismissive.”

Tilly’s face falls.

“What?”

Tilly sighs. “I just… I was hoping to receive some mentorship from them, you know?”

Right. “I’m sure if you ask they’ll be happy to help you.”

“Not that I don’t value everything you’ve taught me and continue to teach me. You’ve been an excellent help so far and –”

“Tilly, I get it, it’s okay. I’ve never been a Captain and you deserve to be trained by one. I’ll put in a good word for you.”

“Thank you… but we can still train together right?”

Michael smiles. “Of course. 6am tomorrow. Don’t forget.”

Tilly groans, but it’s in good spirits.

Michael laughs and starts getting her stuff ready for bed; she moves her pillow and pauses when she sees a small black object. “What’s this?”

She picks it up and inspects it, it’s looks to be a communicator of sorts, but not any model that she’s familiar with.

“Oh, right, Sarek came by before he left and put it there. He didn’t say why.”

“He didn’t say anything.” They had said their goodbyes on Vulcan and he had been as formal as ever. Perhaps more so with the knowledge of Spock’s condition on his mind.

There’s a message on the thing.

_“This is a sub-space, undetectable comm. Use it if you need to contact her.”_

It’s Sarek’s voice, but that’s all he says. There are no more messages.

“Her?” Tilly asks.

“Georgiou,” Michael says, for it’s the only thing that makes sense, even though it doesn’t.

“But why…?”

“I don’t know. But something’s happening, and I’m going to need you,” she feels vulnerable admitting that, but Tilly has been the only person who has been there for her since the beginning.

“Through thick and thin.”

“Thank you.”

…

At first the mission goes as a five-year mission usually does. They first start off dealing with some trade disputes with some outer planets within the Federation and collect some samples from various planets for research purposes.

Nuvo pushes Paul to continue looking into the spores and the mycelial network, but they don’t make him use it which is a good thing.

Tilly does go to Nuvo for guidance and at first they are willing enough to instruct her, but that starts to change and the change starts when they embark, four months into their mission, on what Michael supposes is their actual mission which is heading off into unchartered territory. And if Pike was right, is near a certain unidentified area of Romulan territory.

The first change is Nuvo’s amped up pressure on Paul to figure out a new way to use the spore drive. And since Tilly is heavily involved in that research she regulates her to engineering and cuts down on their mentorship time. Tilly is, understandably, upset by this.

And when Michael tries to confront Nuvo about this, she’s met with resistance.

“Captain, Tilly is a reputable Ensign who is eager to learn. Surely you should reconsider your decision.”

“You are too close to that girl. Commander’s should not have favourites.”

That’s the most bullshit thing Michael’s heard. Even the best Captains and Commanders have their favourites, it’s human nature. “She’s highly intelligent and will go far in Starfleet.”

“Yes, as a Chief Science Officer. She’s not Captain material and it’s best she realizes it now.”

Michael is at a loss for words, and before she can say anything the Captain dismisses her and turns on their com to talk to someone else. She manages to force out a ‘yes Captain’ and stumble out of the office.

Then the fury rushes through her. How dare they! How dare they say Tilly isn’t Captain material. She’s going to make a great Captain one day and Michael’s going to make sure of it. What the hell did Nuvo know, they never even gave Tilly a second look and certainly haven’t done anything to support the development of the rest of the crew.

She’s filled with rage and she doesn’t know what to do with it, especially considering she’s on break. She wanted to catch up on some research, but she can’t concentrate at the moment, so instead she heads to the gym.

After hitting a punching bag for a good forty minutes she’s managed to blow off some steam, but she’s still angry.

“You should probably take a break.” It’s Joann. She’s helping spot for Rhys, but is looking over at Michael in a mix between amusement and concern.

“Done,” Rhys says, and Joann grabs the weights, putting them back on the bar. Rhys sits up and also looks over at Michael. “Are you alright? You were working pretty hard over there.”

Michael comes over, grabbing a towel and water bottle. “Just had some pent-up energy.”

“You looked pissed,” Joann remarks.

Michael’s about to dismiss that, but then she remembers Saru saying that he trusts these people. Perhaps she can too. “Just had a little argument with Captain Nuvo. Nothing to worry about.”

“Ugh! Please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks they’re a bitch.”

“Rhys!” Joann admonishes.

Michael laughs. “No, they sure can be.” She sits down on the mat and looks around. “They’ve made us paranoid again. I’m tired of looking over my shoulder.”

“Me too,” Joann says, “and they don’t even take other’s health into consideration.”

“What do you mean?”

Joann and Rhys share a look. “You have noticed that Paul isn’t exactly functioning like a human being, right?”

Michael has to take a moment to think of it and is ashamed to realize she hasn’t exactly been keeping tabs on Paul. She has more duties on the bridge now as a Commander and Captain Nuvo wants her there. When she does report down to them he’s always busy, but professional. Come to think of it, she hasn’t had a real conversation with him in the four months they’ve been on this mission.

“What’s wrong with him?”

Rhys shrugs. “No one really knows. It’s not like he was the most inviting person before, but well… he’s just different.”

“And we get it, he’s lost his partner, but Pamela was telling me that he hasn’t been going to therapy or anything. How’s he dealing with his grief?”

Michael shakes her head. She should have checked in on him sooner, but she had so much other stuff to worry about and since he wasn’t showing outward signs of distress and was doing his job adequately she let it slide. She feels horrible. “Is he eating? Sleeping?”

“He’s eating, don’t know if he’s sleeping or not,” Joann says.

Michael nods. “Thank you for informing me. I’ll talk to him.”

“Tilly’s been worried,” Rhys says.

“Tilly?”

And it makes sense, but why hasn’t Tilly said anything to her?

“She figured you had too much on your plate already. Why she talked about it with us, but well, you are the closest person to him aside from her so…” Joann says.

“Right, thank you.”

She leaves them to their workout and heads to the cafeteria where she bumps into Tilly. “Tilly, a word.”

“Are you mad at me? Did I leave my bed unmade? I’m sorry, I keep forgetting, I’m just not yet used to my new schedule and I’m so tired in the mornings.”

“New schedule?”

“Yeah, did I forget to tell you?” Tilly asks as they sit down in the corner. “My shifts now start at 5am and they are killer.”

“Oh.” She had wondered why Tilly hadn’t been in their room today when she woke up, but it slipped her mind. “How long will that last?”

“Till the foreseeable future.”

That has Captain Nuvo’s fingerprints all over it. “I’ll see what I can do to get that changed.”

“Thanks! Did you talk to Nuvo about the mentoring lessons yet?”

Shit, right. She can’t and won’t tell Tilly what Captain Nuvo said, but she won’t give Tilly false hope either. Besides, Tilly deserves to be taught by someone who actually believes in her. “I did, but they are more concerned about getting the spore drive up and running at this point. I’m sorry.”

Tilly forces a smile. “It’s alright. It is important work.”

Speaking of. “Why didn’t you tell me about your concerns with Paul?”

Tilly sighs. “Who told you?”

“Tilly.”

“Fine. I’m sorry, I just, you obviously are still hung up over Ash and the whole thing with Lorca and Georgiou and now Nuvo. It’s not like Paul isn’t still doing his job, so I figured this wasn’t something you needed to be drawn attention to.”

“Tilly, the health of every member on this ship is important to me and I need to know about it. What is wrong?”

“Nothing. Well, not nothing, it’s just – he’s like a robot. He goes through the motions of living, but he doesn’t actually live.”

“That is a common symptom of grief is it not?”

“Yeah, but he hasn’t even acknowledged that Hugh’s dead.”

At that moment Paul walks into the cafeteria. They watch him as he walks to the replicator and orders himself a cup of coffee. He downs it in three giant gulps then resubmits the cup back into the depository. He exits the cafeteria without looking around.

“I’ll talk to him.”

“You sure? You don’t have to.”

“Tilly, thank you for trying to look after me, but I’m fine.”

“No you’re not, and you shouldn’t have to be.”

That makes Michael pause. A blush has come over Tilly’s cheeks and Michael strangely wants to reach over and grab Tilly’s hand. It’s a stupid thought and she quickly dismisses it, focusing back on her words. But she doesn’t want to focus on them, not really.

“Tilly, I’ve dealt with my demons and I’ve moved past them.”

“Yeah, but your heart was broken,” Tilly counters, “and you haven’t done anything to get over that. Not to mention everything else.”

“And what about you? These past few months haven’t been easy on you either. What are you doing to cope?”

Tilly bites her lip. “I’ve been seeing a therapist, which I think you would benefit from too.”

Perhaps. But she doesn’t have time for that at the moment.

…

She’s busy for the rest of the day but resolves to have a talk with Paul the next day, or at the very latest the day after that. However, tired as she is, when she tries to fall asleep that night she can’t slip away. While Tilly snores softly on the other side of the room, she can’t help but run over her words again.

Is she really not able to move on? Is she really not okay? She’s been pushing it to the side for so long now that she’s made herself believe that she’s alright. But she’s not, is she?

Her first love ended in disaster and if she’s truthful with herself, she’s afraid of opening her heart again. And who would really want her anyways?

Tilly lets out a particularly loud snort and even though Michael’s been living in the same quarters as her for months now, tonight she can’t handle the noise. Knowing that sleep will not come tonight, she gets up and starts wandering around the halls.

At first, she doesn’t go anywhere, just lets her feet take here wherever they want to go while she lets her mind wander. She started a war, got her Captain killed, then landed on a crew that was run by a corrupt Captain. She fell in love with someone who wasn’t who he seemed to be and that ended in disaster, and she still hasn’t processed everything that happened in the Mirror Universe. She ate Kelpien for God’s sake! And now… now she’s stretched thin and she doesn’t know what’s happening on this ship, or what the purpose of it all is. The scary part of it all is that if she doesn’t get some clarity soon, she just might snap.

She stops walking as she realizes she’s outside of the spore drive lab. Why not? She hasn’t actually checked on the spores in a while after all.

She enters the room and immediately stops short.

Paul Stamets is in there working a frenzy, but whatever he’s working on is obviously not sanctioned. Equipment is strewn around the room and spores are floating around the air unattended.

“Paul?”

Paul jerks around and seeing his face makes it starkly clear that something is very wrong with him. He looks crazy, for that’s the best way to describe it. As he registers her though some sanity returns to his eyes and he looks almost fearful.

“What are you doing here?” he snaps.

She takes a careful step towards him. “I think the better question is what are you doing here?”

“This is my research.”

“You’re supposed to be researching the spore drive and how to make it work again. That’s not what you’re doing here.”

Paul shakes his head. “My research is supposed to be the many properties of spores, I’m off work, I can do my own independent research.”

“You are still on a Starfleet ship. You have to get all research approved.”

Paul looks angrier than Michael’s ever seen him. “I will not let Starfleet have my work!”

“I would have approved whatever it is,” Michael protests, desperate to get Paul under control and frankly, kind of frightened by his behaviour.

He shakes his head, and Michael really takes in his features. He has dark circles under his eyes and he has lost weight, though not enough to be truly noticeable. He’s also twitchy. Not quite shaking, but there’s this energy to him that’s not natural. “You wouldn’t have approved this.”

“What is this?” she presses.

She thinks for a moment that Paul will shut her out or throw insults or do something to distract her, but then she can see that he’s also very tired and whatever it is, it has been dragging on him.

“I’m trying to bring him back,” he whispers.

“Bring him…” her blood runs cold. This is worse than anything she could’ve imagined. “You can’t.”

Paul’s eyes flash. “See! You don’t know anything! I can bring him back. I will.”

“Paul please, listen to what you’re saying.”

“You think I’m crazy? You think I’ve lost my mind, haven’t you?”

Michael shakes her head, but they both know that while she might not think he’s totally lost it, he’s getting close.

“If it weren’t for him we’d all be dead,” Paul hisses.

“What do you mean?”

“The pathways to get back from the Mirror Universe. There were too many of them. It was only because of Hugh that I was able to get out. He’s in the network, I just have to find a way to bring him back.”

“You mean you think you saw him-”

“NO! He’s actually in there. I talked to him – he knew things that I couldn’t possibly have known. He told me there’s a way to get him back. He said he wasn’t truly gone.”

There’s a desperation in his voice that tears at Michael’s heart, and strangely enough she gets it. What wouldn’t she give to have her parents back, to have Philippa back, even to have Ash back – the Ash before they knew he was also Voq. But she also knows it’s not possible and he’s just deluding himself.

“What exactly did he say?”

Paul freezes and she can see him rejecting something, struggling with the reality of his situation. She wishes she isn’t the one to take away his hope, but that’s the only way he can move on.

“No,” he says.

“Paul.”

“NO!”

“Paul, this isn’t healthy!”

“I don’t care.”

“What did he say?”

A long pause.

“Nothing in here is ever truly gone.”

Michael’s heart breaks. “Paul, maybe he was in the mycelial network, maybe he was there, but that doesn’t sound like someone telling you to bring him back.”

“No,” Paul says desperately. “I told him I didn’t want to say good bye. I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t have left if he… he said it wasn’t goodbye.”

“Didn’t you say the network was infected? If you hadn’t left we wouldn’t have been able to get out. Perhaps he was saying that to make sure you wouldn’t die in there too.”

“No he wouldn’t…”

“Paul, have you had any luck with this?” she gestures around the room forcing Paul to look at his work from a different point of view.

She can see the exact moment that it clicks – that he realizes he can’t bring him back and though it’s horrible, it’s needed.

He sags down till he’s sitting on the floor staring at the mess of spores and equipment around the room, and for the first time the full extent of what he’s lost and what he can’t get back truly hits him.

And like Tilly did for her, she sits down beside him and lets him cry into her shoulder, but unlike with Tilly she knows that Paul doesn’t view her as his tether. No. His tether is gone.

And he’s never getting him back.

…

Captain Nuvo storms into the spore drive lab without notice and actually reaches down and yanks both of them to their feet, pushing them away from each other.

Michael and Paul can only stare at Nuvo in shock as they glare at them with harsh eyes. “How long has this been going on?” they demand.

Michael glances over at Paul who still hasn’t bounced back from his emotional upheaval. She has to be the one who steps up here. “It was an accident, we’ll clean it up.”

“Do you take me for an idiot?” they hiss. Michael’s stomach clenches and she has no idea how to handle this situation. Even with Lorca there was a certain subtle mind game that she could understand. She can’t understand this.

“No sir.”

“You’ve all been playing me for a fool – pretending to work on the spore drive while instead you’re actually destroying it.”

“No that’s not –”

“This was just a side project. I can assure you my team is working continuously to figure out a way to work the spore drive independently. You’ve seen the data,” Paul says.

“Side project. You weren’t authorized to work on a side project,” Nuvo snaps.

“I know but –”

“And I’ve seen the data – you’ve gotten no where with it, and instead I walk in here and find you wasting the spores like this!”

“This is cutting edge science! Something we’ve never worked with before. You can’t expect us to make it work in just a few months,” Paul snaps back regaining some of his fire.

“No. You don’t get to dictate what you do and how you do it,” Nuvo says.

Paul and Micahel share a glance not understanding what they’re saying.

“No. I’m shutting this project down.”

“What?” they both exclaim.

“Starfleet might want you to figure this out and I admit it would have its uses, but I can’t trust you to actually do your job. It’s over.”

“You can’t do that,” Paul says desperately. And Michael can see that even though he’s taken the first step towards acceptance, he’s not ready to totally give up, which is fair, but the implications of what that’ll mean for him if he can’t work on the spores at all could be disastrous.

“Please Captain. Reconsider. Just because you haven’t seen results yet –”

“Commander I did not address you.”

“This isn’t an army, stop treating us like one,” Michael snaps back.

“I would be careful of what you say,” Nuvo declares.

“Or what?”

Nuvo smiles, and it’s the type of smile that would scare children. They pull out their pad and bring up a chart. “It says here that they’ve found a way to heal Captain Pike’s Chief Science Officer and the other two officers caught in the accident on the Enterprise.”

And despite everything, Michael’s relieved to hear that one piece of good news.

“It’s going to take eight whole months to recover though, quite the injury.”

Michael knows she’s not going to want to hear what Nuvo’s about to say next.

“Would be a shame if the needed medication and treatment were put on hold, might be detrimental to his recovery.”

“What are you talking about?” Michael demands, though her heart’s beating rapidly in her chest and she doesn’t feel anywhere near as confident as she sounds.

Nuvo smirks. “I’m saying that if you don’t follow my orders and keep inline your brother will die. I have connections in high places and I will make that happen.”

“Starfleet wouldn’t –”

“Starfleet's a dying organization. We're taking control and you can't stop us.”

Michael doesn’t know what to say. Her mind flashes back to Captain Pike's warning. This must have been what he'd been talking about, but what is the purpose and how is she supposed to stop it?

“And you,” Nuvo says rounding on Stamets, “you have a brother do you not.”

Paul stares at them in hatred. “We don’t talk.”

“Pity. He’ll end up in one of the Federations worst prisons if his brother doesn’t straighten up his act.”

Paul looks visibly uncomfortable, but he’s holding up surprisingly well considering the circumstances. “I promise I won’t work on any more side projects. I will put all my effort into making the spore drive functionable again.”

Nuvo laughs. “You’ve lost those privileges.” She activates her com. “Barkley, get a team in here and destroy all of the spores. I want nothing left of them.”

“No!” Paul gasps and he makes a move towards Nuvo that is likely mostly unconscious, but Michael steps forward and grabs him. He struggles a bit, but she keeps a firm grip knowing no good will come from him attacking their captain.

Nuvo assesses them with cold eyes, face blank, but Michael can feel the evilness behind it. Chilling thing is she’s fairly certain they’re not from a mirror universe that could explain this behaviour.

Berkley and his team enter and they start disposing of the spores. Michael and Paul can only watch as his work is totally desecrated without hesitation.

“Make sure you delete all the files – I want no evidence of this work on _any_ Starfleet document,” Nuvo adds.

Paul shudders in her arms. They’ve been clutching onto each other the whole time and one look at him is all it takes to know that that’s it for him. Paul is truly broken and she doesn’t know if there’s a way to fix him.

…

She drops Paul off at his quarters in the wee hours of the morning and gives him a sedative, hoping he’ll have a dreamless rest. It’s uncertain what his schedule will be like now, but for now she hopes he’ll have some time off. She doubts it will help.

She makes her way back to her quarters… only to find she can’t enter them. After five tries she rings the bell, but Tilly’s not answering the door – she’s likely gone on her shift already. She demands the computer for answers.

“You do not have permission to enter these quarters.”

“But these are my quarters.”

“These are the quarters of Ensign Sylvia Tilly. Your quarters are located in Room 208.”

“When was this change authorized?”

“Captain Nuvo made this change at 04:00.”

Michael slams her hand on the door. That evil, conniving asshole.

She storms into Nuvo’s office, eyes ablaze. “Why did you change my quarters?” she snaps.

“What did I say of staying inline?” Nuvo replies.

And Michael is ready to blow a casket and it’s only the memory of Spock lying on his bed unconscious that keeps her quiet. Nuvo must know this for they smirk.

“You obviously are not getting adequate sleep with your current arrangements.”

“I’m sleeping just fine… sir.”

“Besides, Commanders are supposed to have the luxury of getting their own room.”

“I don’t want my own room.”

“That’s not my problem. Now get out of my office Commander I have work to do.”

Michael stares at them in shock for several seconds but Nuvo isn’t even acknowledging that she’s still in the room. She’s truly out of her depth here.

She takes a step towards the door, but she then a thought comes to her. “What happened to my stuff?”

“It was moved over, don’t worry,” Nuvo says.

Oh but Michael’s worried alright. If someone has gone through her stuff they’ve obviously found the subspace comm, her only way to contact the one person who may actually be able to help.

She exits out on the bridge and Saru looks over at her in concern. She gives him a look. They need to do something about this and soon.

He nods and goes back to work and she to hers and it’s like everything is normal. But it’s not.

…

 Now that there isn’t any chance of using the spore drive again Nuvo is constantly pushing them to go at the highest warp speed possible. It’s straining their engines and the personnel, but no one dares complain. Somehow Nuvo has dirt on all of them or at least everyone Michael’s talked to.

They’re forming a plan though, so at least there’s that. Tilly had thankfully managed to snag the sub space com when they had come in to grab Michael’s stuff and so Michael had managed to send out a simple SOS message.

It had taken a month to get a response, which had been a tense filled wait, but finally she received an answer.

_Where are you? P.G._

She sent back their current coordinates and the direction they were traveling and is currently waiting for a response. With the distance they are traveling each day and her not knowing where Georgiou is she expects it to take another month before getting a response.

Really the hard part is passing information around their little group. They can’t all meet up at once since that would arouse suspicion and even when they meet one on one they have to make sure they talk in a way that makes it impossible for someone eavesdropping to figure out what they’re talking about. It’s a headache that’s for sure.

As they get further and further into unknown territory, Nuvo puts an even tighter grip on their control. All communication is cut off and interloping between ship sections is highly discouraged.

It only takes two days of this for Michael to realize that she’s truly cut off from the science department even though she’s the chief science officer. There’s only so much information that can be sent through messages and it’s such a waste of time when they do since they have to take time out of their work to draft up the long messages instead of just giving her a quick report that she can inspect in person on later.

Her time with Tilly is also drastically cut off. They don’t even have the same schedule so they can’t have lunch together. It’s truly fraying at Michael’s nerves.

She has no idea what’s going on with Paul. She doesn’t even know what he’s working on.

She can barely even talk to Saru and they work together on the bridge. Everything about this is driving her mad, but she has to keep her cool. Her only hope is her message to Georgiou.

She doesn’t even know if it’s actually Georgiou responding to her, but she has to believe it is or she will truly go mad.

Then she receives a response.

_Head to 846.537.94861 during the battle._

She stares at the message. It’s obviously coordinates, but during the battle?

She pulls up a map and calls up the Discovery’s trajectory. There’s a lot of back and forth since whatever they’re looking for isn’t easy to find. Even so, she finds the nearest point that corresponds with her coordinates and tracks the area around it. She soon finds the place – a small uninhabited classified M planet. Takes at least 3-4 hours to reach on warp from where they are. Depending on where they go next that time length could increase dramatically. She hopes that the battle, whatever it means, will happen soon.

_What battle?_

She doesn’t expect to hear a response, but it won’t hurt to ask. Now she just needs to get people the message and form a plan.

She can tell Saru easily enough, as well as the rest of the bridge crew, but Tilly and Paul… She can’t send a private message because even those are monitored and it’s too risky to talk about it out loud. They need some workaround.

Her mind buzzing with this new problem, she gets up and goes for a walk around the ship. It’s night time at San Francesco right now so they are on the low shift and Nuvo is also retired to their room, but that doesn’t mean it’s still safe to be walking around. Why she hasn’t done so since the night with Paul.

Speaking of, he’s standing in the cafeteria staring off into space.

And he looks dreadful.

“Paul?”

He doesn’t acknowledge her and as she steps closer she registers that he’s humming something.

“Paul, can you hear me?”

He laughs. “We were supposed to go to Kasseelian Opera, you know?”

Michael shakes her head. Paul’s face loses all traces of humour.

“I don’t see the point anymore.”

Michael breathes out a slow deep breath. She has to deal with this carefully even if she has no idea how. “Right now you don’t, but I promise you it gets better.”

“I felt sorry for you when you told me you’d never been in love, now I envy that.”

Michael’s heart reaches out for him. She thought the same when she first discovered Ash’s betrayal and that stayed with her, even after Sarek told her to not be ashamed for falling in love. But it was those words that had brought her around. What she had with Ash had been special and perfect in its own way and despite everything if she could go back in time she wouldn’t reject his advances.

Then again, their love had just been blossoming. A new thing not even past that initial first stage. Paul and Hugh had been together for years and were an established couple. They had been through it all - the rough fights to the depressing stages and gotten through it. And he lost that.

She can’t understand what Paul is going through, but she has to get through to him in some way. “Hugh wouldn’t want to see you like this.”

“Well Hugh’s not here anymore.”

It’s stubborn in a way that almost sounds like the old Paul, but it’s all underlaid with depression that she doubts will ever truly go away.

“What are you two doing up?”

It’s one of Nuvo’s security officers – or spies if you may.

“We’re getting tea, that’s all,” Michael replies leveling a glare at the officer.

Paul turns towards the replicator and orders two cups of tea while the officer glares between them suspiciously.

“You’re supposed to be in bed.”

“Lieutenant, we both outrank you so I suggest you move along. It’s hardly a crime to get a late night snack now is it?” Michael snaps back.

The officer’s jaw ticks, but thankfully he nods his head and exits the room. He’ll no doubt report the incident to Nuvo in the morning, but there’s nothing they can do about it. Besides reviewing the video and audio feeds will reveal nothing.

Paul hands her a cup of tea, leaving the one for him in the replicator. With a slight of hand, she slips the com into the tea and forces the cup back into Paul’s hand. She’s certain she managed to avoid the camera.

“Drink. You need it.”

With that she turns around and exits the cafeteria, hoping that Paul knows what she did and won’t just dump it back in the replicator. But it’s the only chance she’s got and she doubts she’ll get another one.

…

Two weeks later Ash Tyler appears on the Discovery.


	3. Part 3: Sylvia Tilly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things seem to just keep getting worse, but Tilly is certain everything will turn out. It has to.

Tilly watches Ash and Michael talk quietly off to the side. She wonders if Michael told Ash the lie yet or if she decided not to bother. Just by looking at the two of them she can tell that they both yearn to be around each other again. It’s not quite jealousy she feels, but it’s something.

“Tilly? Tilly!”

She turns back to Keyla who’s watching her in concern. “You okay?”

“Yeah, fine.”

Keyla looks over at Michael and Ash. “Do you think they’re going to get back together?”

“How should I know?”

Keyla shoots Tilly a disbelieving look, but she then pauses and seems to look Tilly over carefully which makes her squirm. “Are you jealous?”

“What? No! What? Why would you say that?”

Keyla smirks. “Because you were the first to be Ash’s friend and now you’ve hardly said a word to him.”

“We’ve all been incredibly busy.”

“Which one do you like?”

“What?” Tilly exclaims, though a blush no doubt is spreading across her cheeks. Curse her pale complexion.

“Come on Tilly, I know that look,” Keyla cajoles.

“We’re supposed to be strategizing,” Tilly argues.

Keyla laughs and looks around. “I think Rhys, Saru and Georgiou are the only ones working, and Rhys only because he wants to impress Saru.”

Tilly looks over and sure enough the three of them are deep in discussion pouring over maps and star systems. It’s plain to see that Georgiou is rapidly losing her patience with Rhys who keeps gesturing wildly and looking over at Saru for approval. Saru is oblivious to it all of course.

“Someone should go save him,” Tilly remarks making no effort to move.

Kayla laughs. “True that, oh look, Arium’s got it.”

Sure enough, Arium who was sitting with Paul quickly walks over and pulls Rhys away despite his protests. Arium probably did it more to not have to deal with Paul’s depressing attitude. He’s gotten a bit better since Ash arrived, which is surprising to say the least, but he’s still not exactly someone you want to be around.

That left Joann and Bryce who are standing to the side laughing – obviously not working. Not that Tilly can blame them, it’s been months since they felt okay to even smile at one another. The relief to not be constantly watched and monitored is extreme, and away from everything the threat and consequences of what they’re doing hasn’t sunk in yet.

“Do you think they like each other?” Keyla asks looking at Joann and Bryce.

Now it’s Tilly’s turn to laugh. “You’re joking right?”

One look at Keyla shows she’s not.

“Wait, you actually think they like each other?”

Keyla actually looks hurt and Tilly tries to think of what she said wrong. “Look at them. They make a great couple.”

“Joann’s a lesbian.”

“What?”

“You didn’t know that?”

“I… I guess it never came up.” Keyla looks shook.

“Yeah she… wait – you like her!”

“SHH!” Keyla hisses looking around. No one is paying attention to them.

Still, Tilly lowers her voice though the undercurrent of excitement is still there. “Oh my god! You should totally ask her out.”

Keyla, however, shakes her head. “She doesn’t like me that way.”

“Oh really? And how would you know?”

“She just doesn’t.”

“Says the person who didn’t even know she liked women,” Tilly teases.

“Oh shut up, but really – she’s been pulling away from me.”

“That’s probably because of Nuvo.”

“No, even before that. As far back even as that party we had.”

“Wait, with the time loop?” Tilly asks thinking back.

“Yeah.”

Tilly searches her mind for what happened that night, and oh ho ho! Well isn’t this interesting. “The party where you were making out with that ensign. What was his name again?”

Keyla opens and closes her mouth. “I don’t have a clue.”

Tilly laughs.

“But what has that got to do with anything?”

“Discovery’s a small ship, that news spread like wildfire. Joann obviously heard and pulled back because she’s jealous and likes you.”

Keyla shakes her head. “That’s a big reach.”

“No it isn’t – ask her out.”

“I see you two are working hard.”

Tilly looks up to see Michael standing over them with Ash a couple steps behind. Michael looks torn between exasperated and amused.

“We… we were, we were just – you know…”

Michael rolls her eyes. “Right, let’s go see what Georgiou and Saru have got.”

They all gather around again and after much arguing and discussion they end up with nothing and tempers are quickly rising. Tilly is pretty certain that Georgiou is this close to stabbing someone (her bet’s on Rhys) and Michael, who is usually calm is close to snapping.

“We need the Enterprise.”

Everyone turns to look at Paul in surprise. He hasn’t said a word the entire time, but now he’s looking at them impatiently.

“The Enterprise?” Saru inquires.

“But Pike could be in on this,” Michael argues.

“It’s a risk we’ll have to take and I didn’t get that feeling when we met him,” Paul argues, “but we need that ship – we need the spore equipment they have to jump into Romulan territory.”

“How are we supposed to contact them?” Tilly asks.

Paul pulls out the com. “It can be rerouted, we just need to know where.”

Everyone stares at it and frankly it’s the best option they’ve got, but it involves a lot of uncertainties and putting their trust in people within Starfleet.

“Captain Pike,” Georgiou laughs. “An egotistical, disgusting bastard that will likely be killed by his protégé. Or at least that was what he was like in my world. He must be a saint here.”

See this is why she doesn’t like Georgiou. Tilly doesn’t want any more reminders of the Mirror Universe, but with Georgiou here she can’t escape it.

“Why don’t we ask Sarek, he was the one who gave you the com after all,” Saru says.

Michael nods though she looks worried. “His communication is probably being monitored.”

“Well it’s the best option we’ve got,” Paul snaps, “so let’s get on with it.”

“I can set it up,” Bryce says. Paul hands over the com to him while Michael nods becoming more confident with the plan each second. That’s what Tilly likes about Michael – she may be totally out of her depth but she won’t let it show, so unlike herself who can’t help the emotions that come out of her.

While Bryce gets to work Michael, Saru, and Georgiou go back to analyzing the maps. Tilly’s about to continue her conversation with Keyla when she notices Paul make a beeline towards Ash and drags him to their shuttle. And well, Tilly can’t help but be curious.

Besides when she looks to see the others, they’re already conversing amongst themselves, and Joann and Keyla are certainly getting cozy, so she slips off after the other two.

“He needs to know what’s going on.” That’s Paul, but who is he talking about?

“We have other things to worry about now. Can’t this wait?” Ash asks.

“What if he thinks we’ve abandoned him and moves on?”

Silence.

“He wouldn’t. He loves you too much.”

Loves… they couldn’t be talking about Hugh could they? No. That wouldn’t make sense.

“He shouldn’t have to hold out just through love. He should have hope too,” Paul argues his voice getting louder.

Of course at this moment Tilly accidentally clangs her arm against the side of the shuttle. She winces as the sound echoes out.

Ash jumps into view with his phaser up then blinks as he recognizes her. “Tilly? What are you doing?”

Paul comes out from behind and sighs when he sees her. “Really?”

“You two just ran off, I was curious.”

“Well it’s none of your business. Now leave,” Paul growls.

“She might be able to help,” Ash counters. Tilly grabs at that.

“Yeah, I can help… with whatever this is.”

“No,” counters Paul, “the less people who know about this the better.”

“We are now felonies of Starfleet! There can’t be secrets between us,” Tilly argues.

“What’s the harm?” Ash says.

“You just want more people on your side so you can get out of helping me,” Paul hisses.

That seems to be the wrong thing to say for Ash’s eyes flash and he stalks up to Paul towering over him. “I promised him I would do everything in my power to bring him back and I’m not going to break that promise.”

“Bring him back? Are you talking about Hugh?”

Paul scowls. “Great.”

But Tilly’s mind is already going in hyperdrive. Of course it would make sense that Paul would try – and when Nuvo had torn down the spore drive? That was when Paul had truly lost it. And really, out of everything the mycelial network is for sure the place where Hugh could potentially be. Spores literally are the answer to so many of life’s questions, she should have seen it before.

Now the only question is how is Ash involved in all of this.

But she’s totally fucking in.

“Okay so what have you got so far?”

Ash smirks while Paul looks at her in confusion.

“What?”

“You don’t even have any questions? You’re not concerned about my sanity?”

“No, it makes sense that you would try.”

“Oh,” Paul says still looking taken aback.

“Great, welcome aboard,” Ash says and quickly fills her in. Tilly’s mind is buzzing and she is eager to look into this drug and see what it’s made of. Her best guess would be some type of shroom, probably indigenous to Qo’noS. Think of all the possibilities.

“Can I see what it looks like when you take the drug? We have this brain monitor machine in here, we can hook you up to it while you go under and see what the readings are,” Tilly says.

“Wait, slow down,” Ash says, “we’re not doing it right now.”

“Why not?” Tilly asks.

“Yeah, why not?” Paul parrots now the one looking smug.

Ash looks uncomfortable and is avoiding their eyes. “I just… I’m incapacitated when I go under. If someone attacks I won’t be able to help protect you guys.”

“We’re perfectly safe here,” Paul says, and though Tilly wouldn’t exactly agree with that he sort of has a point.

“We’re as safe as we’re ever going to get in the foreseeable future. I mean when we head into Romulan territory we’re going to have no time for this. It’s now or never,” Tilly says.

Ash grimaces, but in the end complies.

Tilly can’t help but feel super excited about all of this.

They get to work setting up the equipment and scanner and making sure everything is functioning properly. Ash grates some more of the drug and Tilly goes over scanning it. Sure enough it is a type of shroom, though none that she’s ever encountered before.

“Have you seen this?” Tilly asks Paul. He comes over and reads her tricorder.

“Can’t say I have. Wow, this is amazing.”

“You can analyze it later, can we get this over with,” Ash calls out, and they reluctantly get back to work.

Finally, everything is in place and they step back indicating to Ash to go ahead. He pauses for a couple of seconds staring at them clearly uncomfortable with the whole set up, but he finally leans over snorting up the drug.

It takes only a couple of seconds before his eyes glaze over and he’s gone. His brain waves certainly go crazy though. Paul and Tilly quickly go over the data trying to make sense of it all.

It’s actually quite familiar… almost…. “Dammit!”

Paul looks over at her in concern. “What?”

Tilly sighs. “Nuvo had all our research deleted. I was hoping to compare your brain waves while in the network to his. I think, if I can recall correctly, they’re similar.”

Paul smirks. “See, this is why you don’t trust Starfleet. They say they care about your work, but in the end they just use it for nefarious purposes and it’s your name that gets slandered.”

“It’s not all bad,” Tilly protests, though her short time actually with Starfleet has not been a good indicator of such; Paul’s look speaks volumes.

Tilly sighs. “Well the academy was good.”

Paul rolls his eyes, but otherwise doesn’t respond.

“So what are we going to do now?”

“Right. Well, like I was saying, Starfleet is awful and corrupt like I already knew it to be.” This time Tilly is the one rolling her eyes. “So, I created backups on my own personal netork. I have all my research copied.”

Well maybe it’s a good thing Paul’s so paranoid.

He connects to his own network and a few moments later hands her graphs of his brainwaves. Now they’re getting somewhere.

They are remarkably similar, yet there are differences so Tilly quickly records them to re-look at them later to see if there could be a connection between those differences and why this drug works.

Screams start up outside of the shuttle.

Tilly and Paul look at each other in horror, both grabbing their phasers and leaving Ash behind as they rush out to see who’s attacking.

“Stop! STOP! You’re scaring it!” Michael calls out.

They turn the corner and there’s a tardigrade in the middle of their clearing. Michael is standing in front of it trying to calm it down as it twists in circles and rears its head. Georgiou looks like she wants to shoot it, but for now is listening to Michael’s orders. The rest have backed away looking fearful.

Paul practically skips forward looking far too gleeful for the situation. “It’s here!”

Everyone looks at him in shock with a bit of concern while the tardigrade turns its head and notices Paul. It lumbers over to him and brushes against Paul, almost like a cat. Tilly is not sure what to make of all this.

“Hey there, you here to help us out?” Paul murmurs patting the creature.

“Of course you people would see a monster and turn it into a pet,” Georgiou scoffs.

“Paul, why is it here?” Michael asks, slowly approaching them.

Paul looks up and actually smiles, it takes them all aback. “It’s the key!”

“Key to what?” Michael asks.

“Paul? Tilly? Where did you guys go?” Ash calls out. Tilly winces, they’ve probably lost a ton of data now.

Ash comes out from the shuttle a frown marring his face which quickly turns into surprise as he takes in the scene before him. The tardigrade lets out a weird little trill and bounces over to Ash and circles him. Ash actually laughs and kneels down patting the thing.

“Hey there buddy, good to see you’re alright. What happened to you?”

It trills and runs back and forth between Paul and Ash like a dog.

“Can someone explain this to me,” Michael demands.

“We need the tardigrade to bring Hugh back,” Ash supplies.

“Wait you too?” Michael demands looking betrayed for whatever reason. Ash immediately looks like a caught puppy. He is so whipped.

“I… what do you mean?”

“He’s actually talked to Hugh,” Paul says a certain edge in his voice, “it’s true, we can bring him back.”

Saru steps forward looking between them analytically in a way that only Saru can. “Are you saying that you are attempting to bring Dr. Culber back to life?”

Ash and Paul nod.

“I’m helping,” Tilly says, feeling it’s best to get everything out in the air.

“What do you mean when you say Ash’s talked to him?” Michael asks looking none too happy with the situation.

Before anyone can respond Bryce rushes forward. “Guys, we’ve got a response!”

“Finally, someone who’s actually doing their job,” Georgiou grouses.

Everyone gathers around Bryce as he shows them the communication.

_Ent. will come. Est. 2 days time._

“Who did you send this out to?” Saru asks.

“What I believed to be Sarek’s private com – I got it from Michael’s communications.”

“What you believe,” Georgiou sneers, “but you’re not sure.”

“Well… I mean he could have changed it and I don’t know if it’s entirely secure,” Bryce stutters

“So you could have just let Starfleet know of our position,” Georgiou snaps.

“No this is like Sarek, he doesn’t –” Michael gasps out in pain, clutching her neck. She falls to her knees, gasping for breath like she can’t breathe though she hadn’t been ingesting anything. Tilly steps forward, but Ash gets there first gently holding her up.

“What’s wrong?” he asks desperately, gently opening her mouth to see if he can find the thing that’s blocking her pathway. Michael shakes her head and bats his hands away, still unable to properly breath.

“Someone do something!” Georgiou snaps actually looking worried.

Paul grabs a tricorder and scans her, frowning at the screen.

“What is it?” Saru demands.

“There doesn’t look to be anything wrong,” Paul says, “I mean I’m not a doctor, but this isn’t showing anything.”

“Give it here,” Saru snaps and yanks the tricorder away, scanning Michael. He must also get nothing for he shakes it and looks around for another one.

“Wait!” Tilly says suddenly remembering, “what if it’s Sarek?”

Everyone looks at Tilly in horror, the same thought running in their minds – could their communication be the reason for this reaction?

Michael slumps down unconscious, though at least her breathing has returned to normal, but when Ash tries to wake her up she refuses to do so. Then she starts shaking dramatically.

“Michael!” Tilly can’t help but shout also kneeling down and trying to see what she can do, but like the others she’s no doctor and has no idea how to stop this. The shaking eventually stops after about a minute, but Michael is breathing shallowly and her stats are all elevated.

It becomes readily apparent how screwed they all are without a doctor.

“What do we do?” Joann asks.

It’s silent for several long moments.

“I suggest you two get to work bringing back that doctor then,” Georgiou finally snaps.

Ash and Paul share a look and Tilly looks back at the tardigrade who seems to have been waiting for them.

“What did your visit reveal?” Paul asks.

Ash shakes his head. “Nothing, I just told him about what’s happened and he said if we need to sort that out first he can wait.”

“Well we can’t wait anymore so get to work,” Georgiou snaps a dangerous edge to her eyes.

Tilly can see that neither Paul nor Ash are quite in the mindset to figure out the next step so she wracks her brains thinking over what they’ve told her. “We’re going to need spores, and a lot of them,” she says.

“Okay, where do we get them?” Ash asks.

Paul fiddles with his tricorder for a second then curses. “There’s no readings of any type of spores on this rock at all and we don’t have any samples to create them. We’re going to have to get off this place.”

“Well, the Enterprise should be coming right?” Keyla says.

“After what happened to Michael, we’re really going to trust that?” Georgiou retorts, “and if they do come, they’ll likely be the enemy.”

The tardigrade shuffles over and sits down beside Ash, nudging at his arm. Tilly stares at it, something’s not right with this situation, though she can’t touch on what just yet.

“Well, we should at least get Michael on a comfortable bed and get some monitors on her,” Rhys says.

“Right,” Ash says, making to get up with Michael in his arms.

Georgiou, however steps forwards, her glare enough to make him stop in his tracks. “You get to work, we’ll take care of her.”

Ash looks like he’d rather die than let go of Michael, but Georgiou’s glare is not something you want to go up against so he relents and lets Georgiou pick her up. It’s weird, but the expression Georgiou has on her face as she carries Michael away is almost mothering. Tilly wouldn’t have expected that from someone from the Mirror Universe.

It’s not the time to think of that though, she has to help figure out how to bring Hugh back.

Ash, Paul, and Tilly go over to the tardigrade who rubs against Ash happily. It’s the only one that seems to be enjoying things around here and Tilly has no idea why.

“Well, we have the tardigrade, Hugh’s body, and your drug, now all we need is the spores,” Paul says fiddling with the tricorder again to see if he may have missed something in his readings. That’s when Tilly realizes what’s been bugging her.

“How is the tardigrade jumping around without spores?”

Ash and Paul look at her then back to the tardigrade.

“You’re right,” Paul says turning his device back on the tardigrade and scanning it. He chuckles as he looks over his readings. “It’s somehow storing them up within the ridges of its body which enables it to jump back and forth from somewhere, but it needs to go back to its source to make another jump.”

“Well then let’s go with it to it’s source – that’s where the spores are right?” Ash says.

Paul shakes his head. “We don’t have a spore drive to connect to it, not that we would – we don’t want to hurt it, but without one it can’t transport us.”

“But it brought me to the Discovery without a spore drive,” Ash argues, “I just had to ingest the drug orally instead of snorting.”

“Oh… okay, great,” Tilly says, “then you can go and pack up the spores and bring them back.”

“No, that will take too long,” Paul says, “we need a lot of spores and we can’t have him jumping back and forth. We don’t know the effects and if it’s anything like his last jump, he could be unconscious for a day.”

“What if he just brings back a sample then and we grow them,” but even as she says it Tilly knows that’s not going to work.

“We don’t have the Discovery equipment to trigger a mass growth. It’ll take years to get the amount we need,” Paul says.

Tilly sighs in frustration. She knows they are trying to accomplish the impossible, but it shouldn’t be this hard to figure out. Or at least it would be nice if life gave them a break for once.

She looks over at Ash who looks clueless and completely unhelpful. Perhaps it couldn’t hurt if Ash went and scoped out the place where all these spores are…

“Can I analyze the drug?” Tilly asks.

Ash hands her the small piece. She looks at it in disappointment. “This is it?”

“Saru apparently has more,” Ash supplies.

They call Saru over and fill him in on their developments while Tilly and Paul analyze the drug, trying to see if they could adapt it for humans. It shouldn’t be that far off considering Ash can handle it, but they need to make sure.

“A most interesting dilemma,” Saru muses, “it seems the tardigrade has no problem taking along inanimate objects, perhaps it doesn’t need everyone to consume the drug and just needs the others in close contact.”

That’s true and it certainly would be a quicker option to try despite the multitude of risks and uncertainties.

“Do we want to try that?” Tilly asks. They all glance at each other, each one not wanting to be the one to definitely commit, but they’re wasting time and need to get on with it.

“I’m willing to try,” Ash says though he looks a bit queasy. With that settled, they decide to head back into the shuttle. Saru decides to stay behind and see what sort of readings he’ll get from their departure and so Paul helps him set up equipment around the shuttle while Tilly and Ash coax the tardigrade inside of the shuttle and set up inside.

There’s a certain nervous buzz in the air as they get ready and once everything is done the tension has ramped up.

“Well,” Saru says, “good luck.” None of them mention that this might end horribly and they all might die, but it’s on the forefront of their minds. Still, they can’t make progress without taking some risks.

Saru leaves the shuttle, and it’s silent for several long moments. It’s all up to Ash to take the drug, but he’s just staring at his small piece like it’s the last thing he wants to do. Neither Paul nor Tilly can do much except watch the readings and hope that things go to plan. They don’t even know where they’re going and this plan is dependent on the tardigrade taking them, which it might not want to do.

“Ready when you are,” Paul says sounding confident even though Tilly will bet everything she owns that he’s anything but.

Ash sighs. “I hate this part.” But he puts the drug in his mouth and swallows, squeezing his eyes shut as he does so. For a few moments nothing happens, then the tardigrade rears it’s head like it’s sniffing and goes over to Ash. It then starts shaking and the spores suddenly come loose filling the shuttle. It’s actually quite beautiful.

“Oh,” breathes Paul and he reaches out and touches some of them, his skin starts glowing and his eyes turn that awful milk colour again. Terrified, Tilly scoots away from the spores as they come near her, but there’s too many of them and some manage to brush against her. To her relief, they don’t absorb into her skin like they did with Paul and just bounce off her. It must be his tardigrade DNA.

Ash lets out a groan and falls to the floor clutching his head. She makes to go towards him, but then everything starts rattling and the tardigrade lets out a loud shriek. Tilly covers her ears, but then the shuttle lurches violently and she slams down on the floor bruising her knees.

Then it’s like the world shifts. It’s just a second, hardly noticeable at all, but when everything shifts back Tilly knows immediately that something is different, something is wrong. She doesn’t know what, but as she looks around the shuttle she gets the sinking feeling that it’s her and it only grows as a pain starts creeping into her stomach.

The tardigrade has settled down now and is now nudging its head at the door obviously wanting out. Ash is breathing deeply and is still curled up in a ball, but at least he’s no longer clutching his head though his eyes are still screwed shut. Paul slowly blinks; his skin stops glowing, and thankfully his eyes return to normal.

“That was amazing,” he breaths and the look of wonder on his face makes Tilly wish she could have experienced what he had. Instead that pain is growing and she definitely doesn’t feel good.

“P-Paul…”

Paul turns to her with a smile, which instantly drops off his face and turns to horror. He rushes over to her just as the strength leaves her legs. She still doesn’t know what’s wrong with her.

“I don’t feel good,” she says.

“Don’t… don’t say anything, conserve your energy,” Paul says and he sounds like he’s panicking, but why? His hands go to her stomach and put pressure there causing a bolt of pain to rush through her body. She yells out and tears escape her eyes rolling down her cheeks.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Paul breathes. “Ash! Help!”

She can distantly see Ash slowly get to his knees. He doesn’t look so good, with his skin ashen and his hands slightly shaking, but he takes one look over at them and immediately jumps into action, grabbing a regenerator and a tricorder and bringing them over.

He takes over Paul’s job of holding onto her stomach while Paul handles the equipment. She notices that Paul’s hands are red. She can’t make the connection as to why.

He holds the regenerator over her stomach and some of the pain dissipates… but then it starts again. She moans.

“Why is this… what?” Paul breathes shaking the regenerator as if that’s going to do anything. He runs it over her stomach again and the same thing happens. “No!” he sounds terrified now and Tilly doesn’t think that’s good at all.

“Trade,” Ash barks and Paul does so without hesitation. Ash scrambles over to the medical supply kit, making a mess of things as he looks through it. It’s getting harder and harder for her to concentrate.

“What’s happening?” she mutters.

“Don’t talk,” Paul soothes and Tilly can see the fear in his eyes. It takes her a moment, but it suddenly clicks – he’s worried for her. He cares for her. It warms her heart.

Ash comes back over with a hypospray and injects something in her. It spreads this numbing sensation throughout her body that isn’t the most pleasant feeling but better than what she was in before.

“This will put her body in stasis for twelve hours, but after that she’ll need immediate medical help,” Ash says, “in the war we were given this in case we didn’t have medical equipment on hand, but it’s a quick fix at best.”

“So what do we do? Jump back?” Paul asks.

“That could make things worse. You need to bring Hugh back.”

“But how?”

“We’re back where the tardigrade fills up on spores. It should be enough for you to form a connection.”

“Right,” Paul breathes and picks up his tricorder again, altering the settings. He chuckles weakly. “You’ll never guess where we are.”

“Where?”

“The moon we terraformed.”

Tilly feels like she’s watching their interactions through a screen. She can understand what they’re saying, but it’s all muted and she doesn’t really want to keep up with the conversation.

“Well go do your job, and hurry,” Ash says.

Paul nods and moves out of her line of sight. She hears the sound of things being moved around and something being dragged followed by the sound of a door opening… then silence.

Ash moves and pulls her into his arms and his warmth is a welcome relief to the coldness that has settled into her body. She still doesn’t know what’s wrong with her and frankly, she doesn’t want to.

“You’re going to be alright,” Ash says. “I swear to you.”

She finds that funny for whatever reason, but her body refuses to laugh. She feels stuck and she doesn’t like it.

“I won’t let Michael down again.”

That’s a weird thing to say. “What do you mean?” she asks, it comes out as a whisper.

Ash seems surprised that she talked, but quickly masks it. “I can’t let both of you die, or either for that matter.”

“She’s strong,” Tilly gasps out.

“And so are you.”

Tilly shakes her head. “I… I’m not.” If she’s going to die, then she might as well release her fears.

“Tilly no, you are one of the strongest people I know.”

Tilly wishes she could laugh for she would do so now. “I tell others that I’m going to be a Captain one day, but I don’t believe it.”

“What?”

“Who would want me as a Captain? I’m anxious and talk to much and can’t keep a secret if my life depends on it.”

“Everyone has their problems, that doesn’t mean you aren’t able to overcome them. You’ll be a great Captain.”

“Nuvo’s right. It’s why they stopped teaching me. Michael didn’t say why to spare my feelings but I know it’s because Nuvo didn’t think I’m Captain material.”

“Who cares what Nuvo says or thinks. They’re wrong okay. Tilly, you have this amazing strength and sincerity that will make you a great Captain. Sure you have your insecurities and moments of weakness, but you grow and continually surprise and excel. You’ll be a great Captain.”

She smiles, it’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to her. Pity it was when she’s about to die.

“Besides,” Ash continues, “Michael wouldn’t date someone who wasn’t special.”

Tilly grimaces. “Michael isn’t dating me.”

“What?”

“I said she could tell you that because she was worried about how to interact with you. If she made it clear she was unavailable it would make it more manageable.”

It’s silent for several long moments and Tilly wonders if she shouldn’t have said anything – see what she means about keeping secrets, and this was one of her own!

“I’m sorry,” Tilly says, hoping that Ash won’t hate her, “I shouldn’t have…”

“No, it’s alright. I’m glad you could help her that way.”

“You’re not mad?”

“No. I respect her wish to put distance between us. She wasn’t ready to see me again, and I regret putting her in that situation.”

“You still love her,” Tilly says, for it’s obvious.

“Yes,” Ash whispers.

“Ah,” Tilly says and it’s heartbreaking in a way. She can’t even give him hope that Michael will return the sentiment for she doesn’t really know what’s going on in Michael’s mind anymore. She never did, but since they were separated on the Discovery she’s hardly talked to her.

“Do you wish you were with her?” Ash asks, and for a second Tilly’s confused then she realizes what he’s asking of her and it changes everything.

She’s never allowed herself to think it – Michael’s been her mentor, her older friend, her roommate. She is so above Tilly’s league that it’s laughable… but ever since Tilly met her she couldn’t help but want to be a part of her life in some way, to be with her forever, to constantly be by her side. She never allowed herself to think of it, but it’s true.

“Yes,” she whispers. It pulls at her heart, but if she’s about to die it’s best to leave without any secrets behind.

Ash gently brushes some stray curls out of her face. He’s so gentle and kind – it’s no wonder that Michael loved him… and he’s handsome to. She’s always had a little crush on him as well… though she’ll take that little secret to her grave.

“Then I promise you that when we get out of here, I will be your wing man.”

That would have made her laugh in any other situation.

“I’m not going to make it,” Tilly says, for she knows deep down that whatever is wrong with her – it’s not good. And she can already feel herself fading.

“No Tilly – Sylvia – you’re going to survive. I promise.”

“Why would you help me with her if you still love her?” Tilly asks to change the subject.

Ash smiles, though it’s tinged with sadness. “Because she deserves better than me, and frankly, I can’t think of a person better suited for her than you.”

The sentiment warms her more than anything. Nice words to go on.

She can feel the strength ebb away and she’s so tired she can barely keep her eyes open… why is she even trying?

“Sylvia? SYLVIA! Stay with me!”

She wants to reassure him, tell him that she’s fine, but she’s so tired. She just needs a little nap…

She just needs…


	4. Part 4: Paul Stamets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a reason you don't bring people back from the dead. Paul doesn't care.

Paul steps out of the shuttle dragging Hugh’s coffin with him. Outside he’s met with a forest of spores and instantly his body itches to interact with them. He doesn’t let himself drift away into the network just yet though. With so many spores he doesn’t need to be injected, it would be so easy to tune in, but he must get to work. Tilly and Burnham need him, and Hugh too for that matter.

The tardigrade joyfully bounces around the spores replenishing itself. He doesn’t understand what its motives are or why it’s helping, or even if it is helping, but it’s too much to ponder about for now. He needs to form a connection between here and wherever Hugh is.

The first step is to open up the coffin, but when he goes to do so he stops. He’s not ready to see Hugh’s lifeless body. He hasn’t actually seen it, not while he’s himself. Sure he vaguely remembers holding Hugh’s body in his arms while he was out of it, but when he came too Hugh was already packed away and he never dared open the coffin to look at it. It would have been too real, too permanent for him and he couldn’t let himself go through that.

He wishes Ash was able to help him, if only to open up the coffin, but Tilly needs him more at the moment and Paul is just afraid.

The tardigrade comes shuffling back over and nudges at Paul as if asking him what the hold up is. It truly does seem to be a sentient being, and it’s right – he has to get to work.

Steeling himself, he keys in the code and unlocks the coffin – it opens automatically, revealing Hugh’s still body lying inside preserved perfectly. He forces himself not to focus on it as he drags it out and lets it get surrounded by spores. The spores cling to the body as if it’s been waiting for such an event and soon it’s covered head to toe.

It’s time.

The tardigrade nudges at Paul again, still at his side and so Paul puts a hand on one of its ridges and clings on. Then all it takes is just keying in to the spores and letting go – he’s breathed enough of them in for the transition to be seamless.

And just like that he’s once again in the network, the pathways reaching out and coalescing in front of him as far as the eye can see.

He can already feel himself slipping into that state just outside of consciousness, but his hand is yanked and he’s jolted back. The tardigrade is trying to pull him somewhere, and considering he doesn’t actually know where to go he decides it’s best to follow it.

At first, it’s easy and familiar… well as familiar as the network can be. Paul’s certain he could study it for decades and still only have uncovered the tiniest of portions. But, there’s a certain familiarity to it all that Paul can understand.

Then the pathways start changing and getting harder to traverse, there are also less and less of them, but the ones that remain are a tangled mess that Paul has no idea how anyone could find their way. The tardigrade continues forging onwards, though, unperturbed. Paul desperately hopes that it’s not taking him somewhere unknown and leaving him there. He can’t afford to get lost.

They reach a particularly tangled portion which Paul has no idea how they’ll pass through it – it might as well be a dead end. But then the tardigrade leaps forward and smashes right through the pathways, scattering them into a million different pieces.

Paul watches in shock as they spread out and start drifting away, but then he sees – he can’t let them.

There’s a pathway up ahead, small and barely noticeable, but it’s there. It’s just not attached to anything, at least this side it’s not, and Paul doesn’t know how, but he knows that it’s the pathway they need. He looks behind him and suddenly sees what the tardigrade is doing.

Quickly, before the majority of the pieces can slither away he grabs onto some of them and guides them into a road of sorts, connecting where they are to that lone pathway. The tardigrade shuffles over each piece he lays down, solidifying the bridge. It’s tiring work and he has to be precise. If he puts down a piece wrong it starts tangling up again and they have to go backwards several steps.

Paul has no idea how long they’ve been working at it, but it feels like forever. He only hopes that he’s not too late when he places the final piece down connecting to the lone pathway. As he does so the pathway pulses and immediately starts shaking. It seems that this isn’t something the mycelial network likes.

The tardigrade starts bounding down the path so Paul hurries after it. It doesn’t seem worried that he’ll get lost anymore, which is fair considering there is only one path, but they obviously have no time to lose. The pathway shudders and Paul nearly falls off it. Looking over the edge he’s only met with darkness. He doesn’t know what will happen if he falls and he doesn’t want to find out, so he slows down a bit in the hopes of keeping his balance.

The pressure of the place is also rising which is weird because Paul was under the assumption that there wasn’t any air within the network, but something was certainly pushing down on him and making his ears ache.

The tardigrade shrieks up ahead and Paul pushes caution to the side and sprints the last bit. Suddenly he’s at the end, but he doesn’t know what that means. The tardigrade is trembling at his side, anxious for whatever reason. The place is this weird mess of distorting, shifting colours that is giving Paul a headache. He immediately knows he is not welcome here and every instinct inside of him is telling him to flee. But he’s here for a reason, and he’s going to complete it.

“Hugh?” he calls out, he’s doesn’t even know if this is what the tardigrade was bringing him here for, but he’s desperate and clinging onto the last bit of hope.

“Paul?”

Paul nearly breaks down in relief, and there! Through the shadows comes a figure, that as it forms is unmistakably Hugh. Paul steps forward to meet him, but the tardigrade blocks his way, shrieking once again. There’s a sound of cracking and Paul turns around to see the pathway he created starting to split apart. They have to leave now.

“Paul, is that really you?”

Unfortunately, there’s no time for a reunion and so he leaps forwards and grabs Hugh’s arm and yanks him down the pathway with the tardigrade following behind. Hugh stumbles behind him, but Paul keeps running. The network suddenly makes this awful, shrieking sound and winds batter the three of them from all sides, but Paul will not be deterred. It will not have Hugh. Not this time.

The pathway shudders and the cracks grow wider. It’s shaking so much that it’s incredibly hard to keep their balance, but luckily the tardigrade is better at holding on and so Paul clings to one of it’s ridges as it hops along while keeping a firm grip on Hugh’s hand.

He dares a glance back and sees the pathway has already broken off. They can’t go back, even if they wanted to.

There’s another huge shudder and Hugh slips over the edge. Paul lands on his stomach with a thud, his arm wrenching out of his socket sending a mass shock of pain through him, but he refuses to let go. He will not lose him.

The tardigrade grabs onto the back of Paul’s shirt lifting both of them up and throws them down the pathway. They both land with a thud and roll, but again Paul refuses to let go. He’s never going to let go again.

The tardigrade bounds towards them and starts pushing them while they are still on the ground and it takes a couple of tense moments before they are able to get to their feet again.

They are almost there though Paul doesn’t let himself feel relief. Only when they get back will he let himself relax, and only still if both Tilly and Michael are saved.

Now they are back into the area that Paul knows, but still it’s not as inviting as it usually is. Bringing someone back from the dead must not be something that’s technically allowed. Paul doesn’t give a damn. If he’s permanently locked out of the network from now on because of this but has Hugh back then the trade will be more than worth it. Now they just need to get back to their reality.

They reach the area where Paul and the tardigrade arrived in and Paul’s suddenly met with the realization that he has no idea how to get them both out. He looks around frantically for clues, but there is nothing there and the network is getting quite dark now with the pathways around them falling apart. They don’t have much time.

The tardigrade pushes at Paul as if trying to detach himself from Hugh. Paul digs his feet in and tightens his grip. “STOP IT!”

The tardigrade shrieks and pushes at him again.

“NO!”

“Paul let go!” Hugh shouts, now also trying to get his hand free. Paul stares at him in shock and betrayal refusing to release his grip.

“No. I’m not letting you go again.”

“Paul, trust me. It’ll be okay,” Hugh says and he looks so calm and so like Hugh that Paul wants to believe him, but the last time… Paul can’t. Not again.

Hugh must see this for he steps forwards and pulls him into a hug though Paul still keeps a firm grip on his hand. Paul collapses into his arms; oh how he’s missed his safe embrace. He can’t be without it again.

“If you don’t let go, we’re both going to die. Please let go.”

“No, I’m bringing you back,” Paul argues.

“And you will – we’re almost there, but to do that you have to let go. Trust me.”

Paul pulls back a bit and looks into Hugh’s eyes. Hugh has always been better at lying than Paul is, but most of the time Paul can tell. There’s nothing dishonest in Hugh’s eyes at the moment though. Only love and devotion.

The network shudders and everything is collapsing around them. Paul has to make a choice and he has to make it now.

“Paul?”

Paul let’s go.

He’s shot back to his body.

He’s disoriented, but he forces himself to regain awareness of his bearings then scrambles over to Hugh’s body. It’s still and unmoving and there’s not a sign of life.

He stares at the body in horrific realization that he’s not getting him back, that there was no getting him back. Hugh’s really gone forever…

The tardigrade appears at his side and suddenly Hugh gasps for breath.

Everything slots back into place and suddenly Paul’s world is right again. The relief he feels is staggering and it takes all of his willpower to not burst out into tears.

Hugh’s eyes flutter open and his face scrunches up in confusion that is so adorable that Paul can’t help but laugh though it’s most definitely not the time or place.

“Wh-what…? Paul?”

Paul tries to respond, but his throat is closed up and he’s overcome with emotion. He can see life once again in his love’s eyes and it’s the most glorious thing in the entire world.

Hugh suddenly starts coughing and Paul realizes that he probably needs water and medication and… who knows what else that he’s not at all prepared to give him. Shit.

Ash comes bursting out of the shuttle. “Paul! Tilly’s dying!”

Ugh, everything is moving far too fast. Ash sees that Hugh’s back and rushes over pulling him up without preamble.

“Wait a minute!” Paul argues.

“Tilly needs help now!”

“You… you were there,” Hugh mumbles.

“Yes, now you have to get to work,” Ash replies practically dragging Hugh into the shuttle. Paul can only follow behind helplessly.

Paul can see that something switches inside of Hugh as soon as he sees Tilly and despite how weak and confused he must be he instantly gets to work, kneeling down and scanning her body.

Paul can only stand in slight shock at the side staring at Hugh as he works, scarcely believing that he’s here, he’s alive. He still doesn’t believe it quite yet.

The tardigrade comes shuffling back into the shuttle and heads right towards the bag of drugs which it pushes over to Ash.

“Again?” Ash asks looking queasy.

“We can’t jump,” Paul argues, “that’s how Tilly got hurt.” He has no idea if the tardigrade understands him.

“Give me that drug,” Hugh says, voice sounding hoarse and tired, but still authoritative.

Ash hands over the bag and Hugh takes a piece, cutting it up into three parts. He hands one part back to Ash as is and scans the other two. He stares at the data for several tense filled moments before reaching for a hypospray and mixing together different concoctions. He injects the two pieces, scans them again and repeats the process. Five times later he’s seemingly satisfied with the result and so forces Tilly to swallow one of the pieces and does the same for himself with the other. “Ash take yours,” he orders.

“Hold on, you don’t know how that drug will interact with your system,” Paul argues and he feels irrationally angry. If all it took was injecting the things with a little concoction then he should have been able to take it himself.

“Not now,” Hugh mutters, and Paul’s about to blow up, but the tardigrade shakes itself again and the spores fill up the shuttle. He can’t stop himself from reaching out and connecting on a superficial level to the mycelial network. As he does so he immediately registers that it’s furious and it wants Hugh back. Thank goodness they’re only connected on a superficial level for if they had gone in deeper the mycelial network would likely tear them apart. He has no idea if he’ll be able to enter it safely again. But it’s not getting Hugh back. Not if Paul has any say.

They jump and they’re back at their bleak rock. Paul’s the first one to come to and he only has a second of awareness before he sees the tardigrade shimmer and suddenly it’s gone.

He rushes over to Hugh who looks horrible and helps him up. Hugh leans heavily into Paul’s side, his eyes still tightly closed and he looks to be in no condition to work, but then Tilly moans and Paul can see that she’s in worse condition than Hugh is.

The moan seems to wake Hugh up for he opens his eyes and pushes himself out of Paul’s arms, and it’s stupid but Paul feels a bit hurt by the gesture. Whenever he let himself imagine Hugh coming back it was always followed by a long time of them just holding each other without interruptions. This is anything but. Hugh has barely even acknowledged him for fucks sake. He even gave Ash more recognition!

Saru comes into the shuttle and takes in the scene before him. “What happened?” he snaps.

But Paul’s not in the mood for explaining things and he knows he’s being selfish and childish, but he can’t help it. He storms out of the shuttle without a word and walks away from their little camp, if it can be called that.

He soon realizes how pointless his walk is because there are no landmarks or hills or anything. Just bare rock for as far as the eye can see, so eventually he just sits down about a mile away from the camp and looks up at the starry sky. It’s vast and expansive and all encompassing and it makes Paul feel small and insignificant. The mycelial network had been huge and jumbled and crazy, but Paul had always felt like he belonged there in some way. He didn’t feel the same way about space. Instead he just feels lost and he hates feeling lost.

And now he doesn’t know where he stands with Hugh and he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to interact with the mycelial network anymore. Everything is falling apart and has been doing so for awhile now.

He doesn’t know how long he sits out there, but enough that his fingers have practically frozen stiff and he can’t feel his toes. While his Starfleet uniform is really good at keeping the body insulated, it does have its limits and out here in the middle of nowhere where there’s nothing to balance out the temperature it’s no wonder that he’s shivering.

Knowing that in his weak, malnourished, lack of sleep state he’s highly susceptible of catching some sort of sickness, and the cold will not help with that, he forces himself to return back to the camp even though he’s not ready to face what he’ll find. He doesn’t even know what he’ll face which makes it all the worse.

Joann approaches him when he’s halfway back, having been coming out to meet him. She’s carrying a heavier jacket, some warm food and tea. He gratefully pulls on the jacket though pauses as he stares at the food. Despite not having had a proper meal in who knows how long he’s not that hungry. He knows that’s not a good sign, especially with having a doctor as your partner, but he’s not sure he can consume anything right now.

“At least drink the tea,” Joann says.

Paul sighs but relents and takes a small sip. Peppermint. Definitely not a favourite, but he knows that peppermint is a good choice if you’re mixing other vitamins into it, which is undoubtly what is happening here. Besides, it’s warm and goes down smoothly so he won’t complain.

“Do you want to go back or do you still want to stay out here?”

Paul looks down at his flask not really sure what he wants to do.

Seeing his indecision, Joann answers for him. “How about we stay here till you finish your tea and maybe I can convince you to eat some food, then we can go back.”

Satisfied with that, Paul nods and together they find a couple of rocks to sit on. It’s quiet. Paul doesn’t know what to say and is too afraid to ask the questions he’s desperately wanting but dreading to ask, and Joann seems content to just sit contemplatively.

Perhaps she knows what she’s doing for Paul finds he can’t keep silent for long. But he still doesn’t want to ask those questions, so he starts with a different topic. “We haven’t really interacted,” he blurts out.

Joann smirks good-naturally. “I’m Joann.”

Paul scowls. “I know who you are.”

She laughs. “It’s okay. I’m at navigation, you are in engineering and there’s a massive age difference between us. It’s understandable that we haven’t interacted all that much.”

True. But still, this woman risked her job and reputation to help them when she didn’t have to, and that meant something to him. “Tilly views you as a good friend,” he says, hoping that will help.

She smiles. “She’s going to be okay.”

Paul closes his eyes and it feels like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. Though the remaining weight is still staggering at least that one piece will be alright. “I shouldn’t have left like that.”

“Hey, you helped save her life you know?”

Paul shakes his head. “That was purely selfish.”

“Perhaps, but it’s still true. Besides, no one blames you for running out. Frankly, we’re all surprised that you hadn’t snapped before.”

“Think this is past the point of snapping,” Paul murmurs. The last three months aboard the Discovery were some of the worst he’s ever experienced. He honestly doesn’t know how he survived them.

“You still managed to do your job throughout it all. I wouldn’t have been able to do that in your case.”

Paul needs to change this conversation. “Why did you sacrifice everything to come with us?”

She hesitates then laughs softly. “It’s stupid.”

“I doubt it.”

“I wanted to impress Keyla. Like yes, I knew that Nuvo was bad and what was happening was wrong, but my parents sacrificed so much to get me into Starfleet. Throwing that all away feels like I’m betraying them in a way, but when Keyla asked me… I couldn’t say no.”

Paul smiles. Young love - a naïve beautiful thing. “So you two are dating?”

Her eyes widen. “No! I… I don’t even know if she likes me. That’s why it’s so stupid. I don’t regret following, especially now that we know what Section 31 is trying to do, but she… I don’t think she likes women.”

Paul tsks. “There are very few people who are 100% straight so please don’t fall back on 21st Century assumptions.”

Joann laughs looking a bit more hopeful. “Yeah, but it would be an easier pill to swallow then if she just didn’t like me.”

“Well have you talked to her about it?”

Joann stares at him in horror and Paul wonders what he’s said wrong. “No! Why would I do that? I can’t tell her I like her!”

“Why not?”

“B…B…Because!”

Paul honestly is glad that he’s older and more sure of himself. He remembers the insecurities he had with himself when he was young and how he stumbled around, and he understands what Joann is experiencing, even though in hindsight she’ll realize how silly she’s being.

“The reason Hugh and I were together is because we were honest about our feelings for each other.”

She scoffs. “Yeah, but that’s because you and him are perfect for each other.”

Paul snorts. “We’ve had our fair share of problems and it hasn’t been easy. For most of our relationship we’ve been apart and having to rely on subspace communication. We needed to be upfront about our feelings.”

“But I have no idea if Keyla thinks of me as anything more than a friend.”

“Talk to her,” Paul repeats rolling his eyes.

“Fine,” she says sounding like a chastised child and Paul can’t help but smile. She then frowns, and Paul is once again on the alert.

“You said were,” she says.

“What?”

“You said you and Hugh were together. Why did you use the past tense?”

Paul’s throat closes up and he feels sick to the stomach. He can’t be here anymore. He looks down and sees that his tea is finished – a perfect excuse to leave. So, he gets up and starts walking back to the camp without another word trying to focus on simple thoughts, like the periodic table or the last math problem he was reading.

“Michael’s awake,” Joann supplies once she’s caught up and Paul’s grateful that she’s switched the topic.

“Oh, good – does she know what’s wrong with Sarek?”

“He was poisoned, and they don’t know by who, but they’re both alright and the Enterprise is not going to be bringing us in for treason when it gets here.”

Well there’s some good news at least.

“How long were we gone?”

“15 hours, the Enterprise should arrive tomorrow.”

15 hours. No wonder he’s exhausted. He’s probably been awake for over 48 now.

“Did anything happen during those 15 hours?”

“Nope, we were just stuck here waiting.”

They arrive back at the camp and Paul’s unsure what to do. It’s quite dark now and no one is outside, but he doesn’t know which shuttle to go to.

“Our shuttle’s a bit crowded with six, but you’re welcome to join,” Joann supplies, “Georgiou has hers all to herself and I doubt she’ll let you in, but you can always ask.” And yeah, Paul’ll pass. “And your shuttle is basically the sick bay now. Michael’s fine, but Tilly still needs medical supervision.”

Paul nods and while he’s tempted to go with Joann to her shuttle he knows that’s not where he needs to be. So, after wishing her good night he heads off towards the shuttle he came in.

Inside Tilly is sleeping on a pull-out bed attached to some monitors. Michael and Ash are seated on either side of the bed, staying vigil, and both of them are holding one of Tilly’s hands, but they’re also holding each other’s hand – joined over her body making a little circle. And he sees something there that he doubts they’ve come to recognize yet or are willing to acknowledge, but he can see that if they let it, it can turn into something special.

Then there’s Hugh, beautiful, perfect Hugh standing at the foot of the bed looking down at a pad with a slight frown on his face. None of them have noticed that he’s entered.

He doesn’t want to disturb them, but at the same time he can’t just stand there all night. He takes a step forwards and the movement catches Hugh’s eye. For a second they just stand there staring at each other, and honestly Paul’s not sure what to think, only that he wants to stare at Hugh for the rest of his life. His mind’s too tired to really register anything else.

Then, Hugh strides towards him face carefully blank and Paul doesn’t like that look – it’s too clinical, too impersonal. Will that be how it is from now on? Has their relationship snapped in some irreparable way?

Hugh reaches him and stabs him in the neck with a hypospray, injecting him with something… something that’s making him sleepy. His body sags and he collapses against Hugh’s warm, solid chest and he feels betrayed but also relieved.

He looks up at Hugh and the mask is gone, replaced with pain, hurt, and worry, but most of all there’s this tender all-encompassing love and it’s that love that makes him smile as he drifts off into sleep.

…

He wakes up feeling more tired if that’s possible and with sharp hunger pains shooting out from his stomach. He supposes he should eat something though the act of doing so doesn’t interest him. He then remembers how he passed out and jolts upright.

He’s in the shuttle on a pull-out bed. Tilly is still asleep on her bed and Michael is sleeping in the chair beside her, leaning on the bed in front of her – it’s sure to give her a sore neck. Ash, however, is awake and is slouched back in his chair looking at something on his pad. Hugh is nowhere in sight.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Ash says looking up, “you’re supposed to eat those. Both of them.”

Paul looks to his side where Ash is pointing and there are two ration bars laying there. Great.

He considers just getting up and leaving, but Ash is watching him like a hawk and Paul wouldn’t put it past him to hold him down till he ate so he grabs one of them and takes a small bite. It’s bland like always and hardly satisfactory. He manages to eat half of one before he can’t bring himself to continue, so he folds the rest back into the package and chucks it back with the other one.

Ash sighs from across the room.

“Where is he?” Paul demands.

“Avoiding you,” Ash responds. Ouch.

Well, two can play at that game. “I have to talk to Saru, if he comes back tell him… well you don’t have to tell him anything.”

“You two are unbelievable,” Ash mutters, but he looks back down at his pad and doesn’t say anything else so Paul takes that as agreeance.

Outside the cold morning air surrounds him making him shiver. He should have grabbed the jacket Joann had gave him last night, but he’s too prideful to go back inside. Besides, he’s only going to be walking a few meters to Saru’s shuttle.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

Paul freezes. The voice is snappish, angry, and it’s the most beautiful thing Paul’s heard, but he’s also hurt and annoyed so he won’t let himself fall into nostalgia. He turns around and there’s Hugh standing at the side of the shuttle wearing a coat and gloves, looking adorable and far too healthy for a man who’s just been dead for nearly eight months. And that’s just not fair.

“I don’t see how that matters,” Paul snaps back hiding behind his shields like he always does. Only he’s never really had to use them with Hugh and that’s what makes this whole situation so wrong.

Hugh steps forwards with a scowl; Paul tries to step back but finds he’s rooted to the spot. “You’re a middle-aged man, you should know how to take care of yourself.”

“Don’t you dare,” Paul hisses. He has no right. No right whatsoever to attack him like that. “I would like to see you be the picture of health if you were in my shoes.”

Hugh’s face breaks down for a second and a little voice at the back of his mind screams at him, asking him why he’s doing this, and Paul doesn’t know. All he knows is that he’s filled with anger and pain and it’s all Hugh’s fault that he’s feeling this way. Hugh’s expression turns back to anger though and that’s easier to handle. “That might happen if you continue like this.”

Rage runs through Paul and he steps forwards, pushing at Hugh’s chest. And damn him, he hardly moves. Paul forms his hands into fists and strikes at Hugh’s chest against with the sides of them. He goes to do so again, but Hugh grabs them and keeps them trapped in a firm grip.

“LET GO OF ME!” Paul screams.

Hugh pushes him back, letting go of his wrists as he does so. Paul stumbles back a few steps, but that doesn’t dampen his fury.

“YOU DID THIS TO ME!” and dimly he can see that Hugh has cracked, but tears are blurring his vision and he can hardly see, and all that really matters is letting him know how he ruined him. “I WAS FINE WITHOUT YOU AND THEN YOU CAME AND MADE ME FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU, AND THEN YOU LEFT ME! YOU FUCKING LEFT ME! YOU…” and there’s so much Paul wants to say and yet he’s overcome with emotion.

“And do you think I don’t feel terrible about that? That it doesn’t destroy me to know that I couldn’t be there for you, and caused you so much pain?” Hugh demands.

“You told me to leave,” Paul hisses.

“You would have died if I hadn’t!”

“But at least I would have been with you!”

“DON’T!”

Hugh’s final shout sends them both into silence and they stare at each other in shock. And suddenly Paul realizes that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter — the pain that he was in, or the desolation, or any of it because _Hugh’s back._ It’s a miracle and an impossibility, but he has him back and that is all that matters. So he stumbles forward into Hugh’s arms and clings, half sobbing, half laughing and Hugh’s arms circle him and hold him tight and finally, finally everything is right in the world.

Eventually he pulls back and takes in Hugh’s face – it’s covered in tear streaks with red eyes to show for it, but he’s still as handsome as ever and that’s all that matters. He leans forwards and kisses for the first time in far too long, pushing himself to get as close to Hugh as possible. He kisses Hugh more out of desperation than anything, a need for contact and reassurance that he’s _alive._ He doesn’t want this to lead anywhere, not right now – all that matters is having him close and in his arms.

He shifts and starts kissing Hugh’s cheeks, his nose, his eyelids, everywhere he can reach. Hugh starts laughing and pulls back, bringing his hands up to cup Paul’s face to stop him. Paul clings to Hugh’s back to keep them close and he recognizes distantly that they probably look weird from an outsider’s perspective, but he doesn’t care.

Hugh gently wipes away some of the tears on Paul’s cheeks, but that just makes fresh ones fall down.

“I love you,” Hugh whispers reverently.

“I love you too,” Paul replies and leans forward for another kiss. Hugh pulls back far too soon though.

“We need to talk.”

Paul shakes his head stubbornly. “I don’t want to.”

Hugh’s body shakes as he laughs silently, but there’s a sadness in his eyes. “We have to sort this out.”

“Why?”

“Paul.”

“Hugh.” He leans forwards and starts planning little kisses on Hugh’s neck and after a moment Hugh sighs and relents, leaning down and cuddling his head into the crook of Paul’s neck. Paul smiles against Hugh’s skin knowing he’s won the argument, at least for now.

They stay like that, wrapped in each other’s embrace until Saru comes out of his shuttle and everyone has to get to work.

…

It’s a blur after that with packing and making sure everything is ready for when the Enterprise arrives. And then before they know it they are stepping out of their shuttles with Pike standing there waiting for them.

“Do you have any idea what sort of mess you’ve caused Starfleet?” Pike asks, though there’s a hint of a smirk on his lips.

“Let me guess, they want to withdraw my reinstatement,” Michael responds, “and since they can’t reach me they endanger my family. How’s Spock?”

“On Vulcan healing, he should be fine.”

Michael’s jaw twitches but otherwise she remains as impassive as ever.

“Let’s move this to the meeting room, I’m sure you all could use some refreshments,” Pike says cordially leading them through the ship. Paul’s skin crawls at the stares they receive by passing officers. This ship is huge compared to the Discovery and there are so many more people aboard. Paul has no idea how Pike’s managed to convince all of them that it’s in their best interests to go against Starfleet’s orders… if that’s truly what’s happening here. Paul still expects them to be dragged back to the Federation and thrown behind bars.

They enter a board room and they all take their seats. A woman comes into the room a moment later and joins them.

“Thank you Number One, is everything running smoothly?”

“They all believe we’re heading back to Earth now,” the first officer responds.

“Good,” Pike responds then turns to assess them all. Now that either could have been said for their benefit to keep them from panicking till it’s too late, or Pike is actually deceiving his whole crew. Either way, Paul is on the alert and he knows the others are too. Pike’s gaze stops at Hugh and Paul bristles, straightening up.

“I’m sorry, you weren’t on the list of defectors. Who are you?”

Hugh opens then closes his mouth shooting a glance at Paul and suddenly the implications of what they’ve done sink in. They can’t very well tell this man they aren’t sure they can trust that he’s someone who’s supposed to be dead.

“He’s mine,” Georgiou says with a sly smirk that Paul hates more than anything at the moment, though it does get them out of this little predicament. “I like someone to keep my bed warm.”

And oh, she’s gone too far. Hugh, as perceptive as ever, reaches over and places a warning hand on his wrist forcing Paul to check himself.

Pike raises his eyebrows but his attention has shifted over to Georgiou, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because the attention is off Hugh, bad because Paul is simmering with rage and he can’t do anything about it. The idea of Hugh being a kept man! How dare she speak such vile atrocities about –

A stab of pain runs up his arm and realizes that Hugh just pinched him. They glare at each other, but Paul gets the hint… for now. He forces himself to pay attention.

“You must be the Mirror Georgiou,” Pike says.

“Oh so you know about that?” Georgiou says, actually letting herself sound surprised.

“Well they had to explain why Captain Georgiou is alive and a wanted fugitive of the Federation when she’s dead.”

Georgiou smirks. “The Federation and it’s secrets – they’re going to collapse under them one day.”

“What is happening?” Michael interjects.

“Right, well Captain Nuvo obviously reported you as defectors and we’re supposed to be returning you to Earth to stand trial. As we were the closest ship, we were given the job.”

“So the message…?”

“Sarek reported it.”

That damn bastard!

“Then why did they poison him?” Michael demands.

“Because he only reported it after the Enterprise was in position to be able to pick you up. He didn’t betray you Michael, in fact the opposite – he ensured your freedom. At least for now.”

“Why should we trust you?” Michael demands.

“The Romulans are very upset and are about to start a war, we have already lost millions in the war against the Klingons, we cannot afford another one against the Romulans. And your group is probably the only one who can stop it.”

“Why did Starfleet get itself into this mess in the first place?” Saru demands. “It seems counter-productive.”

“Section 31 has gained far too much power lately within the Federation and Starfleet and some within want a war. It’s better business for them.”

“Can’t blame them for that,” Georgiou says.

“At least pretend to be on our side,” Paul snaps, still pissed at her.

She looks over at him disdainfully. “And you’d be dead if it weren’t for me.”

“No, we’d just be stuck on the Discovery,” Tilly says.

Georgiou laughs. “Not him, he’d have wasted away by now.”

Beside him Hugh stiffens.

“Okay,” Michael interjects, her voice sharp and demanding, “let’s get back on topic.”

“Yes, let’s, but the plan does revolve around Stamets. Are you okay? Or do you have an illness? You do look… under the weather,” Pike says.

“I’m fine,” Paul snaps. Hugh scoffs lowly beside him, but Paul refuses to look over.

“Okay,” Pike says, though he doesn’t look convinced which is bullshit. Sure he may have lost a tiny bit of weight, but he’s hardly a snowflake. He’s perfectly fine.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Before all the data was deleted we created a small spore drive that can fit into one of your shuttles. If you can remember how it functions, you can put in the finishing touches and while we are at warp back to Earth you will jump to Romulan territory and resolve the conflict from the inside.”

“Now –”

“We don’t have anymore spores,” Tilly interrupts Hugh, sending him a sharp look. Hugh snaps his mouth shut, but he looks murderous and yeah, things are not going to be good between them.

“We have some,” Pike says.

“Great!” Tilly squeaks looking over at Paul worriedly.

“What about the coordinates?” Paul asks.

“Right, here they are,” he puts them up on the screen and sends it to their pads. Seemed like there is no stopping them then. He hopes the mycelial network has calmed down by now.

“Perfect, well as soon as it’s all set up we can get going,” Paul says, knowing that Hugh is glaring daggers at the back of his head.

“How are we supposed to fix this?” Rhys asks.

Pike sends them all a bunch more files, all of which have classified written at the top. “This is proof that Section 31 exists and is trying to target them.”

“This will just further their cause,” Keyla exclaims.

“Not necessarily - it shows that Section 31 is something separate from the Federation and Starfleet,” Michael says looking the documents over, “but they’ll initially be on the attack, and we'll have to be convincing.” She looks up her eyes dark and pointing, a true leader. “You’re sending us on a suicide mission.”

Pike doesn’t beat around the bush which is actually pretty commendable for him. “Yes. It’s either this or being locked up in a Federation cell for the rest of your lives and a guarantee of another war breaking out.”

Well shit.

It’s quiet for several moments, then – “those who want to come may do so, but those who wish to step out can do so now.”

No one moves.

“We’re with you till the end,” Ash says, and the others nod.

Michael sighs and turns back to Pike. “Okay, let’s do this.”

…

While they were in the meeting, some of Pike’s trusted officers had set up the makeshift spore drive in one of their shuttles, so once the details were sorted out all they have to do is input the final transmissions and they are all set.

Paul busies himself with making sure the readings are put in correctly and ensuring that everything will be ready for the jump. Tilly and Michael work alongside him and before long they are ready to go. There’s this somberness in the air that surrounds them. It’s glaringly obvious that they are likely going to be killed, held prisoner or tortured on this mission and their only hope is being able to be convincing and praying that the Romulans will see reason. If they'll even be able to get there. The jury's still out on that.

It’s hard to stay positive.

“What will you say to Starfleet when you return to Earth?” Michael asks Pike once they are done double checking everything and packing away supplies.

“We’ll trigger a fake explosion and say you escaped.”

“You never put us in the brig though, if there’s spies on board they’re bound to be suspicious.”

“I can talk my way out of it,” Pike reassures, “you don’t become the Captain of the Enterprise without being able to outsmart stuffy old Admirals.”

Hugh tugs at Paul’s arm breaking his attention away from the conversation. He pulls Paul away from the group and into the shuttle which is packed full of supplies. It’s going to be a tight squeeze once all of them pile inside.

“What?”

“I’m going to assume that you never got yourself checked out.”

Paul opens then closes his mouth and chooses to just glare sullenly at Hugh. Hugh sighs and pulls out his medical pad, swiping through it. “They deleted all the data I had on you.”

“Well then it’s like it never happened,” Paul snarks.

“Paul.”

“Hugh.”

“Paul, stop it.” But there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Paul reaches over and grabs his hand, not bothering to hide his own smile.

“You know, it’s cute that you care about me.”

Hugh scoffs. “Cute! I think it’s more concerning.”

“Concerning that you care about me? I thought you loved me?”

“Paul, I know what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?” Paul asks innocently, though he’s far from innocent. He’s giddy in a way that he hasn’t been in a long while and while he knows they both have problems to sort out he can’t help but want to bask in this playful flirtyness. Especially since they are about to head off into a highly dangerous situation.

Hugh steps forwards, bringing his free hand to cup the side of Paul’s head, his thumb gently rubbing Paul’s cheek. He leans into the touch, revelling it. It’s been too long since he’s had this gentle, loving contact and his body is craving it. He reaches out his own free hand and sets it on Hugh’s hip, sneaking it under the shirt so he can touch the skin there. He wishes they had more time.

“You’re trying to distract me,” Hugh whispers. Frankly, Paul can’t really remember what he’s distracting him from, but he likes where they’re going so he’ll continue it.

“Is it working?” he whispers, their faces are now only a few inches apart.

The shuttle door opens and in comes in the rest of the crew. They both step away from each other, though the tension still hangs in the air and Paul can’t help but feel a bit annoyed at the others though it’s hardly their fault. Now is hardly the time or place to be exploring such things… though it always feels like it’s never the right time and place. And with where they’re going… Paul forces himself not to think of it.

“Ready?” Tilly asks Paul and he forces a smile and nods.

Like expected, it’s a tough fit, but at least his little station gives him enough room. He straps himself in and nods at Tilly who activates the spores. He looks over at Hugh to find him staring down at his pad and he rolls his eyes as he realizes that Hugh managed to slip a medical patch onto Paul to analyze him.

He feels the needles lock into his enhancements and the weird rush of spores entering his system gives him a jolt. He’s forgotten what it felt like, but once again the euphoric like sensation sets in. He looks over at Hugh once again to find he’s looked up from his pad.

“I love you,” he says.

Hugh’s eyes tighten and Paul remembers the last time he said those words in this position and flinches. Yeah, perhaps that was not the best thing to say. 

Suddenly a screaming pain sets in and Paul immediately knows. Something is wrong.

Hugh must notice for he steps forwards, but the spore drive is activated and Paul is swept away.


	5. Part 5: New Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew get answers and have to make hard decisions.

There’s a loud screech and their shuttle spins out of control with crates and bodies flying everywhere. Michael bangs her elbow against the wall, cursing as the pain bursts from the source. Thankfully, it only lasts a few moments before the vessel rights itself and jerks to a halt. There’s groaning and muttering as people straighten themselves out. 

“PAUL!”

Hugh launches to the spore drive and yanks Paul free from the contraptions. Michael’s horrified to see the milky white covering over her eyes again and the first thing that comes to her mind is that they are once again in the Mirror Universe.

The thought turns her stomach cold.

She scrambles to the cockpit where Ash is controlling the shuttle. “Where are we?”

“We’re at the right coordinates.”

“You sure?”

He points to navigation where she double, then triple checks. Yes, they are in the right place, and their signature is the same as before. They are still in their universe. Her stomach unclenches just a tiny bit.

Georgiou pushes her way into the cockpit. “Where are we?” There’s something gleaming in her eyes.

“Where we’re supposed to be,” Ash says.

Georgiou’s eyes flicker over the screen and they harden. “Well that’s disappointing.”

Michael chooses not to respond to that. Instead, she analyzes the situation - despite everything, their first part of the mission is going as planned. But at what cost?

“How’s Paul?”

Georgiou looks at her with cool eyes. “Unresponsive.”

To Michael’s surprise, Ash is the first one to scramble to the back of the shuttle, though she follows behind pulling Georgiou with her.

Paul has now been placed on the ground, lying prone and blank. Hugh is scanning him, fully in medical mode betrayed only by the tightening of his shoulders. Tilly is hooking up brain sensors and Ash has kneeled down, taking Paul’s wrist as if checking his pulse.

They didn’t know how to snap Paul out of his trance last time and though she hates the thought, she doubts they’ll be able to do so here.

“We don’t have time to waste, we need to get down to Romulus,” Georgiou says.

“He’s in critical condition,” Hugh snaps, “that can wait a few moments.”

Georgiou rolls her eyes. “Oh please, you do not have the equipment nor resources to help him. The best hope he has is if we make a deal with the Romulans and soon.”

And despite the cruelty behind it, Michael knows that she’s right. She hates it, but she has to be the one to make the hard decision here.

“Okay, a team of us will go down as planned. Tilly, Saru, you stay with Hugh. Keyla, Bryce, you’ll man the shuttle while we’re gone.”

“I’m staying here.”

Michael stares at Ash. “What?”

“I know more about the network than Saru does and I might be able to help Paul.”

Michael opens and closes her mouth then settles on a glare. “Just because you have some drug –”

“Let’s get going,” Georgiou snaps.

“He’s right,” Saru says, “he’s been in the network – his knowledge may be invaluable to Paul’s recovery.”

Michael feels betrayed and she has to force herself to take a step back to analyze her aversion to leaving Ash here. The answer shocks her. She wants him by her side. Despite everything, or maybe because of it she trusts him implicitly to have her back. That and she wants to spend time with him.

Once she’s acknowledged that she forces her selfish impulses to the side and sees the situation through objective eyes. Unfortunately, she sees that Saru is right.

Ash goes over to her taking her hands in his own. “I’m sorry. I need to be here.”

She squeezes them and forces a smile. “I know.”

“Be careful.”

“You too.”

And there’s so much she wants to say, so many words that are left unspoken.

They’ll have to wait.

She steps back.

“Okay, everyone coming, get ready.”

There’s a flurry of movement. Michael herself busies herself with grabbing a phaser and tricorder. She feels eyes on her and knows that Ash is watching her, but she can’t look over at him again.

She’s so busy not focusing on Ash that she doesn’t notice Tilly till she stands right in front of her. She looks at her surprise morphing into concern as she takes in her expression.

“You’ll be alright, right?”

Michael’s heart twinges. “I don’t know,” she whispers for while she wants to leave Tilly with hopeful words she can’t lie. She has no idea what they’re going to encounter on Romulus.

“We’ll come charging in if you run into trouble.”

Michael laughs. “Sounds good. Bring Paul back to us.”

“We will.”

They hug each other, both squeezing tightly and again there’s this feeling of words being left unspoken.

She had woken up to find Paul, Tilly and Ash gone without a trace and despite the news she gained, the majority of her attention had been on them and if they were alright. When they had returned with Tilly severely injured her heart had nearly stopped.

Seeing her pale figure laid out on the pull-out bed had stirred something inside of her. Fear. Desperation. The horrific realization that her tether may be wrenched from her without her say.

To her surprise Ash was the one who grounded her. He was calm and efficient while helping Hugh treat Tilly; it was because of him that she was able to take a breath and reorient herself.

She’s ashamed to admit that it was only after Hugh declared that Tilly would recover did she recognize the miracle and impossibility of Hugh Culber standing there. Somehow, improbably, they had brought him back.

She hugged him tightly and expressed her joy at seeing him alive. She was concerned to see the pain and darkness in his eyes even though he smiled and said it was good to see her again.

She thought it best at the time to not ask where Paul was. Now, as she watches Hugh on the floor trying to help Paul she can’t help but wonder if it was because none of them really talked to Paul to see if e was alright that he was in this situation.

It’s too late to dwell on that now.

She pulls back from the hug and smiles weakly. She wants to say something to Tilly. Anything. But no words come to her. She says nothing.

Everyone is ready now. Bryce confirms their coordinates then they transport away.

They land in a park where the bustle of traffic is slightly muted. It’s a good thing they landed where they did for the first people they catch sight of makes it readily apparent that they stand out as outsiders. Michael finds herself remarking how similar Romulans look to Vulcans with the same pointed ears, blocked hair cuts and accentuated eyebrows. Their clothing style is also very crisp and dramatic, though as she watches two of them start up an argument it seems the Vulcans religious abstaining of emotion is not followed here.

She opens her com. “Bryce, we’re going to have to re –”

Out of nowhere a bunch of Romulan officers suddenly surround them holding up phasers. Crap.

There isn't really anything they can do so they can only comply as the officers relieve them of their coms and weapons.

One of the officers, who's seemingly in charge steps up to Airium and looks her over in disgust. “Now Starfleet is sending undercover spies into our territory. Is there no end to your treachery?”

“We’re not part of Starfleet,” Michael says, “or well, not anymore.”

The Romulan laughs. “You people certainly are horrible at espionage. You can’t even bother to get real disguises, and sending… what is this?” she eyes Saru up and down in disgust.

“I’m a Kelpian m’am, and I can assure you we are not here for espionage purposes. We wish to help your people, not bring them harm in any way.”

“Oh sure, and that is why you’ve been trying to send people into Romulan territory for months now is that right? To help us?”

“Some at Starfleet are trying to start a war with your people, it’s true, but we’re trying to stop that.”

“By sneaking into our territory?” she sneers.

Georgiou scoffs. “Oh please, this is hardly sneaking in. We practically rang your doorbell. If I were to sneak into this damn place you would never even know of it.”

Michael holds her breath certain that they will all be thrown in a brig or worse, but to her surprise the Romulan officer actually seems kind of impressed. She sizes up Georgiou with something akin to attraction in her eye, and Georgiou is giving it right back.

“I sincerely doubt that.”

“Oh really?” Georgiou smirks, “tell me, has the scandal between your President and his mistress been resolved?”

The Romulan officer hisses and steps back a few steps, around them the other officers charge their weapons. Georgiou maintains eye contact with the leader, the smirk ever present on her lips, and Michael is forced to face the fact that Georgiou has somehow played them again. Though for what purpose and why she has no idea.

She glances over at Saru and sees that he’s thinking the same thing.

“How do you know that?” the officer asks.

“Why it was the talk of the nation a month ago was it not?”

The leader glances quickly around at the crowd that is steadily growing around them, and Michael can see the uneasiness shifting behind her eyes. Georgiou has definitely struck a nerve here that is bigger than Michael has any idea of.

“Take them to the cells,” she orders stepping back though her eyes remain on Georgiou and they seem afraid. Georgiou lets herself be locked into handcuffs with that evil grin still on her face knowing she has the upper hand.

And Michael has no idea what game they are playing.

They are locked in a big cell with two guards just outside the door and six more at different points along the hall. With the cameras and, no doubt, audio chips embedded in the wall, it isn’t the best time to talk, but Michael has to at least get a picture of what is going on.

“What was that scandal and how did you know about it?” Michael demands.

Georgiou looks over at her with fake innocence that does not suit her and Michael is not in the mood for games.

“Must have gotten lucky.”

“No. No, you know something.” Michael stares at Georgiou in horror as a thought comes to her. “You’re still working for Section 31 aren’t you.”

To her surprise Georgiou’s face darkens and she crowds into Michael’s space. “I do not work for that piece of scum organization.”

Michael eyes her warily, trying and failing to understand where this mood swing is coming from. She forces her self to take a breath and think things through clearly. “They betrayed you.”

Georgiou’s jaw ticks, but then her face eases back into its traditional smirk. “Actually, the opposite. They wanted to promote me.”  

“I thought you liked gaining power.”

“Nothing gives me greater pleasure.”

“And yet you threw it away?”

“It’s hardly power if you still have to follow orders, and I had no interest in following orders, especially stupid ones.”

“Then why did you join up in the first place?”

“I was curious, of course the more I learned the more disappointed I got. Everything was so simple and one track minded. Should have realized by how easy it was to bait them.”

“You knew about this Section 31 before you got hired?”

Georgiou scoffs. “I didn’t become the Empire of the Terran Universe by just killing people. Give me more credit than that.”

Michael steps back trying to sort everything into place. “Okay let’s ignore those details for now. What exactly did they want you to do, and I’m assuming it wasn’t spying on the Ferengi.”

Georgiou laughs. “Of course not, that would have been an insult to my talents.”

“You were the one spying on the Romulans.”

Georgiou looks up at one of the cameras, but shrugs and turns back to Michael. “Yes.”

“And you couldn’t have just said that?”

“I needed you to be naïve.”

Michael’s blood runs cold. “What are you talking about?” she demands.

But Georgiou glares at her and she understand that look – it’s the be silent look – and despite everything she knows that Georgiou is currently the only one that can get them out of this situation so she has to put her trust in her hands. It’s not a comforting thought.

She looks around at the others who are all staring at Georgiou with either fright, anger or a mix of both. Saru actually, strangely enough, looks the calmest of them all. Perhaps it’s due to his sensors not tingling, which one would think would be going crazy right about now.

But what’s going to happen to the others now? Hopefully, they’ll still be undetected in their shuttle, but by the way the Romulans had captured them so easily, she can’t be sure. The thought of them boarding the shuttle, or worst, destroying it turns her blood cold. She has to force herself not to think of it.

Still, she can’t help but think back to a few days ago when she found out that Tilly had been horribly injured. Fear had consumed her when she learned that Tilly was still unconscious even though Hugh assured her that she would wake up soon. At the time she still hadn’t understood how Hugh was there and alive, better yet, why wasn’t Paul around.

But then she saw Tilly lying there, pale and motionless and everything else had fallen out of her mind. She can remember her heart beating rapidly in her throat and the realization that she almost lost her best friend made her weak.

Then she saw Ash sitting at Tilly’s bedside watching over her and something clicked though she still isn’t quite sure what it was. He looked up when he realized that she was in the room and there was no denying the love in his eyes as he took her in, along with the worry and relief.

He stood up and opened his mouth, though no words came out. Michael remembers how she smiled and stepped to Tilly’s bedside and reached out her hand for him.

He looked confused and uncertain, but he took it and Michael reveled in the feeling of his warm palm beneath hers. She sat down in the chair at Tilly’s bedside and also took Tilly’s limp hand in her own. Hers was cold and stiff, but it felt right, having them both at her side. She looked over at saw Ash doing the same with Tilly’s other hand and something warmed in her heart.

She blinks back to the present and to her surprise finds that her eyes have gotten a bit blurry. She hurriedly blinks them away.

“So you’ve been playing us this whole time?” Rhys shouts standing up and crowding into Georgiou’s face. Wrong move.

Georgiou backhands him hard and he goes sprawling to the floor.

“Was that really necessary?” Saru admonishes as he crouches down beside Rhys and looks him over.

“You’re all ungrateful things!” Georgiou spits taking a step towards Saru. Michael quickly intervenes between them.

“Can you blame us? You’ve lied about all of this and we still don’t know your motives.”

An interesting couple of expressions crosses Georgiou’s face, but it’s all behind this sharp, cold calculation. She’s always trying to stay three steps ahead, but Michael is tired of these games and it’s landed them in a cell with their futures uncertain so she’s going to get answers.

“I’m trying to fix this mess,” she ends up saying.

“And what mess is that exactly?” Michael demands, “and that still doesn’t explain your motives.”

Georgiou laughs. “I don’t want you to know my motives.”

“Then how do you expect us to trust you?”

“I don’t want you to trust me.”

And that is perhaps the sincerest thing Michael’s ever heard Georgiou say and it pulls at Michael’s heartstrings just the tiniest of bits.

Michael takes a steadying breath to reign in her emotions. “Okay. I won’t, but I still need answers.”

“Not here.”

The door at the far end of the hall opens and in walks a Romulan dressed exquisitely and holding herself with an air that indicated her upper status. She walks up to the edge of their cell and stares inside, eyes boring into Michael’s with a sharp intensity.

“Michael Burnham, a wanted convict. What a surprise to have you here, especially considering you’re supposed to be dead.”

Michael frowns. “I’m sorry?”

“You’re supposed to be dead,” she repeats.

Michael glances at Georgiou who just raises her eyebrows. She turns back to the Romulan. “Who are you?”

“Senator Leral. Now, tell me how you survived.”

“Survived from what?”

“Don’t play games with me,” Leral hisses.

“I’m not.”

“You were aboard the Discovery.”

“Yes.”

“Then why were you not on it when it was destroyed?”

Michael feels like she was punched in the stomach. “Destroyed? You must be mistaken.”

“You doubt our military strength?”

Michael takes a step away from the cell’s entrance her mind racing. Is this a bluff made to get them to reveal secrets? Or could there be some truth to what they are saying... perhaps they are just mistaken? She looks over at Georgiou and her blood freezes.

“What did you do?” she demands.

Georgiou looks at her with cold, dark eyes. “What I needed to.”

Michael shakes her head everything jumbling in her mind as she tries to sort it out. “Did you plan all this?” she demands a bit of hysteria entering her voice. “Did you set up this war? Did you set up the Discovery’s destruction? Did you –”

“Yes, I set up the war.”

Michael’s heart is torn once again to pieces. And this is her fault, all of it, because she saw a ghost in someone who was the furthest thing from Philippa Georgiou as someone could get.

“Why?” she gasps.

“Because war is the fastest way to infiltrate powers and gain control,” she says it as if she’s simply talking about choosing a meal plan or something equally as menial. Not the start of another destructive event mere months after humanity was nearly eviscerated.

“THEN WHAT IS THE POINT OF ALL THIS?” Michael demands, her temper snapping as everything boils to the surface.

Georgiou glares down at the floor sullenly and as Michael stares at her she realizes that something went wrong in Georgiou’s plan. If Michael can only figure out what it was she may be able to understand this mess.

“As much as this is all very interesting,” Leral interrupts, “I still don’t understand how you are alive, nor why your Federation which wanted this war so badly hasn’t answered our calls to battle.”

“What call to battle?” Saru demands.

Leral looks him over with faint disgust. “What are you?”

Saru sighs. “A Kelpian, but also a former Commander and First Officer of Starfleet, now what call to battle are you talking about?”

Leral laughs. “Is this really how Starfleet teaches its spies how to gather intelligence? By making them ask such stupid questions?”

“We aren’t spies, we’re felons,” Joann says softly. A glance over at her reveals her to be in a state of shock and Michael wishes she could comfort her, but she herself is too full of mixing emotions to do anything of the sort.

Leral looks over at Georgiou. “You seem to be in the know, why don’t you fill them in if they really are this naïve.”

“But that would reveal to you why the Federation hasn’t answered your call,” Georgiou replies and there’s a hint of a grin behind her features, but Michael’s not having any of it.

“No,” she stays stepping up to her. “No, you may be here to start a war, but I’m here to stop it so you tell everyone right now what is going on.”

Georgiou scowls, but Michael’s not letting her get away with this.

“I needed you out of the way while Starfleet and the Federation destroy itself from the inside, and then the Romulans would attack and everything would be scattered.”

“And what could I have done to stop it?”

Georgiou laughs harshly. “You wouldn’t have been able to do anything.”

“Then why did you need me out of the way?”

Georgiou rolls her eyes and turns to Leral. “They haven’t answered your attack because they don’t know that the Discovery is destroyed yet.”

And with that confession Michael's world gets turned on its head once again. If what Georgiou is saying is true... then that means all those people, all her innocent crew members are dead. And she fucking abandoned the ship.

“How?”

“They closed off communications and just sent a little message telling the Federation that ten people defected.”

“Why would they do that?” Leral asks perplexed, and Michael feels the same. But she also feels anger. Anger and despair. Her crew, her fellow officers - dead. How can she live with herself?

“Because the Discovery didn’t actually send the message – it didn’t have time, especially with their best bridge and engineering crew abandoning ship so conveniently. Not that it would have made a difference in the outcome. The Discovery was by far outnumbered.”

Michael’s head is spinning, but despite her anger she needs to remain calm in order to get answers. “So we were just tools for your game, but why hold off on telling Starfleet that the Discovery was destroyed?”

Georgiou scowls. “Because I realized I no longer wanted to start a war and this is my way of fixing it.” She turns to Leral. “You can see that she is innocent in all of this, but she does have information that will be of interest to you.”

Leral takes her time looking over Georgiou, but in the end she nods at her guards and they remove Michael from the cell. She looks back at the others, her eyes landing on Saru and it’s only a few seconds where they share a sense of worry, concern and pain before she’s pulled down the hallway and out of sight.

She’s brought to a private office space where another Romulan woman is waiting for her, she gestures for Michael to take a seat. Once she does so the guards exit the room.

“Welcome Michael Burnham, I’m Empress Utzu and I must say I did so enjoy the little scene down in your cell.”

“Didn’t realize I was here for your enjoyment,” Michael snaps.

Utzu bows her head. “No, you’re right, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. However, that lady… Georgiou, right?”

“Yes.”

“She was right - naturally everyone suspected you of attempting to infiltrate our territory in order to gain key insight before you humans respond to our declaration of war – which your people instigated by the way, quite rudely too might I add.”

“By trying to find a backdoor entrance into your territory?”

“We told the Discovery to back down. Your ship shot first.”

Michael closes her eyes. She hadn’t been on the bridge when the fight had started, none of her team had been. She hadn’t known and it was only when the red alert had started along with the blaring sound that accompanied the shields being hit had she known that this was the time to escape. She’s not all that surprised that they shot first, it was in Nuvo’s character.

And what better way to start a war then to have one of Starfleet’s key ships destroyed. It would certainly have sent a message throughout the Federation and if they knew about it, it would have started a war. It should already be in full swing by now. Their mission had always been a suicidal one.

And for whatever reason, Georgiou had decided to stop it. Michael still doesn’t know why.

She opens her eyes to find Utzu assessing her. “So, what are you supposed to convince me of?”

She supposes she should try and complete the mission, even though it all seems so pointless now. Did they ever really stand a chance? “I’m supposed to convince you that there’s a secret service that’s detached from Starfleet called Section 31 and they are trying to start this war to destabilize Starfleet and gain control of the Federation. I have the files… or well I did, it’s with my tricorder you so kindly took from me.”

“Oh, we’ve reviewed the files of course.”

“Naturally.”

“They are quite convincing.”

“But?”

“This plan has been developed over years and yet for the key information gathering before the final implementation they send a rogue unknown into our territory. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?”

“You’re asking the wrong person. I had nothing to do with that.”

“I know. You and your little band of felons are probably the only innocents in all of this if that’s possible. Though, the question does remain as to how you got here. We still haven’t sorted that out.”

“We have to keep some secrets, don’t we?”

Utzu smiles unamusedly. “If we knew how you got here we would allow you to leave.”

Michael barely refrains from rolling her eyes. “No, you wouldn’t.”

“You doubt our word?”

“I’m sorry, that’s not going to work. But know this, the Federation has no way of entering your territory like we did, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

“Oh, and now we’re supposed to trust your word?”

“I guess we’re at a stalemate.”

“Georgiou may have somehow manipulated the signals that stopped the Federation from learning about the destruction of the Discovery, but they’ll learn soon enough and war will start.”

“Why didn’t you just incapacitate the ship and send it on its way instead of destroying it?”

“It would have taken longer and endangered more of our people.”

“But this way more of your people might die.”

“Perhaps we’re tired of the Federation sticking its nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

“Or you wanted a war to start,” Michael counters an idea coming to her, “because someone planted that little seed.”

“Oh?”

“Georgiou’s been infiltrating your society for months now, and I have no doubt that she wasn’t only gathering information but sowing the seeds for a war.”

Utzu smiles. “Yes, that woman is very crafty, isn’t she?”

“What you need to do is make contact with the Federation to present the information in my files and demand a contract negotiation. You make it clear that you do not want a war, but are ready to have one. You make it clear that while you did destroy the Discovery, you didn’t shoot first. I’m sure you have data to confirm that.”

Utzu’s smile drops, but she is listening. “We do.”

“The Federation doesn’t want a war, and I’m sure you don’t either, we can stop this.”

Utzu actually looks impressed. “You’d make a good leader.”

“Thank you.”

“And that plan would be excellent.”

Michael internally groans. “But?”

“But, you must know that we have our spies within the Federation.”

“Naturally.”

“And in some circles Section 31 is too influential for just a peace treaty to work.”

“It can at least halt the progress of war,” Michael counters.

“Yes, but in order to stop the war fully we’ll need to place the blame on someone… or well some people.”

Michael closes her eyes again knowing where this is going.

“Us.”

“Yes. We have the evidence needed to show that Georgiou was hired by Section 31, which will give us the link between her and you.”

“She convinced us to join her cause, which is why we abandoned ship.”

Utzu nods. “And you infiltrated our territory to ensure the start of the war, and the Discovery doesn’t get destroyed till… say tomorrow? After all, who knows when it was actually shot down.”

“The perfect group to place blame on.”

“Exactly.”

Michael sighs and she thinks it over. “So what? You suggest you hand us over to the Federation?” They would be put in prison, but they were technically already heading there so she supposes it was just them getting their fate. Besides, they should be dead already. And Michael was supposed to live out her life in a prison cell, things were just coming full circle.

Utzu shakes her head smiling pityingly. Michael’s stomach clenches. “No, the plan is to inform your Federation that it is your deaths or a war. And really, 11 deaths over an all-out war is something the Federation will easily grab at, especially since you are felons. This will be broadcast extensively throughout the quadrant mind you.”

Michael’s heart beats rapidly in her chest. “There’s only six of us.”

“Don’t take me for stupid. There are 10 recorded felons plus Georgiou. I know there are five others somewhere within my territory.”

“I’m sure –”

“Thing is, I like you,” Utzu interrupts, “it would be a shame to see such a bright young mind like yours be wasted.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

“You know it’s interesting how in one day suddenly all the information Starfleet had on the spore drive just got deleted.”

Michael huffs out a laugh. “You’re spy network is certainly extensive.”

Utzu grins. “Why thank you.”

“It was a shame though, that was a lot of work.”

“And yet, here you are.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Utzu smiles. “As much as I would like to know how the spore drive works I know that’s not what my people need right now. Nor is it something the Federation needs.”

“Maybe that’s why it got deleted.”

“No, the Federation is too egotistical to do that.”

That’s certainly true. Perhaps she can give a bit of the truth. “We angered our Captain, who as I’m sure you know, was an influential member of Section 31. They were the one who deleted everything to punish us.”

Utzu smiles. “How delightful. Well, it certainly makes my job a lot easier.”

“How so?”

“If you tell me how you got here, you can leave the same way as I promised only with one small exception.”

“What’s that?”

Utzu leans forward, her eyes dark and penetrating. “You jump somewhere, be it alternate universe or a different quadrant, or whatever, where you can’t come back.”

Oh.

“But then how would you give proof.”

“DNA is easily replicated and expanded upon. We’d only need the smallest amounts.”

Michael rubs her temples. “I have to talk to my people.”

Utzu smirks. “Of course. You have till tomorrow. Oh, and here’s your communicator if you wish to reach out to the rest of your company.”

Michael takes it and glances back up at the woman. “How can I know you’re telling the truth?”

She smirks. “You can’t really, can you?”

Michael’s led out of the office and as she’s led down the halls she looks down at her communicator and has no idea what to do.

…

Tilly watches the transporter particles dissipate, a lump in her throat.

She was the one who felt things, the one who cared and emphasized and normally she liked that about herself.

The total fear she feels now, not knowing what will happen to Michael and the others coupled with her unspoken feelings for Michael makes her wish she doesn’t feel so much.

There’s nothing she can do about it now though so she forces herself to get back on task. It already feels like a hopeless one. Paul had found his way out of the network on his own and whatever Tilly had tried last time had seemingly made it worse. Still, she pulls up Paul’s data to see if she can find something she missed.

The first thing she notices is that the brain waves are different from before. Both from when Paul was successfully making jumps to when Paul was trapped in the network last time. They are similar, but not. Almost like… she’s seen these reading before or at least she thinks she has. She can’t remember where though.

She flips through the data, but it’s not there then she starts pulling up old Starfleet cases that she studied in school. Her heart sinks as she takes in the sizes of some of the reports. She forgot how awful course readings are. This is going to take a while.

Paul starts seizing. His body convulsing and his brain activity goes crazy. Hugh curses, placing his hands on Paul’s shoulders to keep him from moving too much.

“We need to strap him in,” he says.

Ash yanks down a pull-out bed and together with Hugh helps lift Paul up and they strap his seizing form to the bed.

“It’s okay Paul, it’ll be okay,” Hugh says stroking Paul’s forehead where a bit of sweat has appeared, but his voice sounds strained and it’s easy to tell that he doesn’t believe his own words. Tilly needs to figure out where she’s seen those brain waves.

“You’re the one that helped him get out last time, right?” Ash asks Hugh.

Hugh nods once again running a tricorder over Paul’s body. “But I have no way of entering the network this time, unless you feel like killing me again.”

He says it lightly, but Tilly sucks in her breath expecting the atmosphere to become strained.

“I don’t think the tardigrade will be willing to help bring you back again,” Ash jokes and Tilly lets out her breath. The two men chuckle and Tilly can’t help but be amazed by what’s happening in front of her. She honestly doesn’t understand how Hugh can be so cool around the person who murdered him, even if he hadn’t done so under his own will.

“Do you think if I took the drug it’ll…”

Hugh shakes his head. “I’ve looked it over, it won’t get you to the mycelial network.”

Tilly wants to bang her head. Of course! “Paul’s not in the network.”

They both look over at her in confusion. She quickly flips through her data only to realize in despair that it’s gone. She remembers how they were interrupted by the tardigrade and they hadn’t set up a backup yet. “Shit!”

“Tilly?” Hugh asks.

“His brain waves, they aren’t the same as they were when Paul is in the network. However, they are similar, if I’m correct, to Ash’s brainwaves. Only thing is, it didn’t save the one time we checked so I can’t be certain.”

“So does that mean he’s in the veil?” Ash asks.

Hugh’s face goes ashen, he then swears and grabs his pad analyzing his data with his tricorder. He swears again. “All of his vital signs are slowly dropping, if you’re right he’s…” he has to stop and take a breath though his lips are still trembling. “He’s going to move on.”

Tilly’s heart breaks. And they had only just gotten Hugh back for fucks sake, did the universe have something against them?

Ash strides over to a container and starts riffling through it. He pulls out the bag of drugs looking at both of them with eyebrows raised. “Well?”

“It can’t hurt,” Tilly says. Hugh nods.

Bryce comes rushing into the back. “Michael and the others have been captured.”

Everyone freezes.

“What do you mean?” Ash barks, a frantic frenzy behind his eyes. Tilly’s own heart has started beating a mile a minute.

“They were surrounded when they landed and had their coms and stuff confiscated. I don’t know where they took them.”

Ash takes a step forwards. “We have to –” he stops as he looks at Paul, and Tilly can see the warring emotions run through his head.

“Can I take the drug?” Tilly asks for that would let Ash go save them. Hugh however shakes his head.

“It’s not meant for human consumption.”

“But you gave us pieces when we went back to the camp,” Tilly argues.

“That was only to get us joined on a superficial level and I had to inject highly toxic substances to it in order to make it work. I needed to apply the antidote to the both of us right after. In powder form the poisons will work much faster, you’ll most likely die.”

Keyla comes into the back room. “I’ll go down.”

“You have to man the shuttle,” Tilly says.

“Bryce can do that.”

“Okay, let’s all take a second to analyze the situation,” Hugh says. “If we go rushing down there like the others did we’ll just get captured too.”

“We can’t do nothing!” Keyla says.

“You can’t get any signal?” Hugh asks Bryce.

Bryce shakes his head. “And I don’t want to override the coms since that will give away our position.”

“We knew this was going to happen,” Ash says and he looks calmer now though resigned as well.

“What do you mean?” Tilly asks.

“We have to trust that Michael and the others know what they’re doing. They need to talk to the Romulan authorities; they are now in a position that will make it easier to do so.”

“As prisoners!” Keyla says. Tilly is on her side. They can’t just leave the others to fend for themselves. What if they are being tortured right now?

Ash sighs and he looks pained. “The best way to help them is to have Paul back.”

“Who knows what the Romulans are going to do to them!” Keyla snaps.

“And you’ll just join them if you go down there,” Ash retorts eyes blazing.

“I agree, the best thing we can do at the moment is wait,” Hugh says, “Bryce – see if you can tune into any Romulan frequencies, try and find out what is being said about them.”

Bryce nods and goes back to the cockpit. Keyla glares at them, but finally sees reason and so relents, following after Bryce. Tilly bites her lip. Yes, they shouldn’t just rush in, but doing nothing seems so… it feels like they are ignoring them. She hates this.

“Thank you,” Hugh says to Ash.

Ash just nods tightly, getting to work on shaving the drugs. She can tell that if it wasn’t for Paul he would be the first one down on that planet trying to save Michael despite what he said about needing to take precautions. Hugh must see that as well for he steps away from Paul and picks up a piece of the drug to also help shave it down. Tilly takes his position of watching Paul’s vitals, knowing the two of them need to have this talk.

“I already told you this, but I don’t blame you for my death.”

“You should. It was a part of me that killed you.”

“For you that was eight months ago, for me, I’ve had years to think it over. I forgive you.”

Ash freezes, the hand holding the shaver trembling. “I’ve done nothing to deserve it.”

“Nothing to… if it weren’t for you, I’d still be stuck in that veil.”

Ash shakes his head. “That was just fixing a wrong.”

Tilly winces. The guilt must be eating him alive.

Hugh sets down his shaver. “Have you talked to someone? About everything you’re going through.”

Ash shakes his head. Tilly’s not surprised.

“Well you should. I think we could all use some counseling,” Hugh says.

“Maybe when this crisis is averted… and if another one doesn’t crop up.”

That brings a laugh out of the both of them though Tilly can see that Hugh is still concerned and Ash is avoiding looking at Hugh. And Tilly thinks she understands. It’s not just Hugh Ash needs forgiveness from, it’s also Paul and that’s why he’s doing this.

Hugh looks at the pile of shaves. “Isn’t this enough?”

“I should take a bigger dose so I can stay in longer.”

“I don’t think that’s advisable. You could overdose.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Hardly! You haven’t had a checkup since taking the drug. This might be having adverse effects on your health.”

“And we can deal with that afterwards, but right now Paul is dying,” Ash snaps.

“And you’re just going in to check on him,” Hugh counters.

Tilly pulls down another pull-out bed and prepares the scanners for Ash. This time she will save the data.

Ash doesn’t seem happy with Hugh’s argument, but relents thankfully. They are dealing with under researched substances after all.

She hooks him up and makes sure everything is running before giving him the go ahead. He gives them only a brief nod before snorting the drug and within moments he’s gone.

The first thing she does is compare the two brain waves and as she had thought, they are the same pattern. Hopefully they’ll get answers.

With Ash now under, it’s just the two of them in the back and Tilly can instantly see that Hugh isn’t doing so well. He’s twitchy, restless in a way a person gets when they want to do something but there is nothing. It’s a waiting game now.

It’s also far too quiet. Tilly needs to say something. “Do you think Michael will be okay?”

Way to be obvious Tilly – she should have said the away group or even Michael and the others or any other such combination, but instead she said Michael and only Michael.

Hugh blinks and stares at her as if he forgot she was there. She’s worrying for nothing. “Oh… umm… I guess you could check with the other two.”

“They would have said something if they found anything new.”

“Right.”

The silence stretches out again.

“Michael’s good at talking her way out of things. I mean, we would still be in the Mirror Universe if it wasn’t for her.” She’s rambling again, but she can’t stop. Is it obvious she has a crush on Michael? Probably. It's a good thing Hugh doesn't seem to really be listening. “I certainly wouldn’t have been able to keep calm – Georgiou is frightening just by herself but with all her resources as the Emperor… I don’t know how Michael did it.”

“She is one of a kind,” Hugh agrees. She can tell that he isn’t in the mood to converse, but she really doesn’t want the silence to stretch out.

“And I mean, I can see why Michael wanted Ash to go with them. They work so well together – remember on Kronos – they were such a team!”

“I’m sure they were.”

Tilly blanches. “Oh my god! I’m so sorry! I totally forgot, how could you have remembered – you were… sorry.” There she is putting her foot in her mouth again. When will she learn?

“It’s alright.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Tilly…” whatever he was about to say, he decides against it and instead his eyes soften and he looks at her fondly. “Thank you.”

God, this is all way too emotional for her. Her eyes water, curse her emotional state, and she can’t help but step forwards and give Hugh a hug. He’s surprised for a second, but soon wraps his arms around her and she notes that he gives amazing hugs. She’s surprised Paul doesn’t take advantage of them more often.

They pull back and when Tilly looks up at Hugh she can see him start to smile, but maybe it’s the tears in her own eyes or it was the hug or the emotions catching up to him, but it rabidly collapses and his face crumples as he breaks down.

She helps him down and rubs his back as Hugh curls in on himself, pressing the palms of his hands into his eyes.

“I can’t… I can’t…” he whimpers.

“Shhh, it’s okay, let it out.” And though it’s horrible to see him like this, it’s better than the silence. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He shakes his head, but a few shuddering breaths later he starts talking. “It’s my fault.”

“What?”

“Paul. The mycelial network. It did not like me being brought back to life, this must be its revenge.”

Tilly doesn’t know what to say. “Why didn’t Paul say anything before the jump?”

“Because he’s a self-sacrificing idiot who doesn’t think and I didn’t... I should have realized… God! He’s lost so much weight.” He gestures to Paul, and yeah, the man is practically skin and bone.

“I’m sorry.”

“None of this is your fault.”

But she is partly to blame. All of them on this mission could have done more to help Paul in the months afterwards. Even just making sure he went to counseling or the such.

Hugh must read what’s she thinking on her face though for her squeezes her shoulder. “Tilly, he’s a grown man and your supervisor. It wasn’t your responsibility.”

She still feels guilty though. Paul has been her mentor for years now, he’s helped her through so many difficulties. These past eight months have been really hard on all of them though. But if there’s one thing she can do now, it’s make sure Hugh gets through this.

“It’s been what? A day? And already you can see that Paul’s better.”

“And what if he dies? How am I supposed to live knowing I’m the reason for his death? I’m… bringing me back would have been a waste, it would have been for nothing. I’m…” he breaks off with another sob.

Tilly shifts to face Hugh fully. “We’ll get Paul back.” She forces herself to believe those words, for Hugh certainly doesn’t and if she doesn’t there isn’t anyone here who does. And they need to believe. It’s the only thing they have.

Bryce and Keyla burst into the back. “The Empress is heading to the capital to talk to the prisoners,” Bryce says.

“Oh wow, is that good?” Tilly asks.

“They’ve got their attention at least,” Hugh says having calmed down and quickly wiping away his tears. It’s seeing him snap back to attention that makes her realize he’s wearing a mask even deeper than his medical one and she doubts his mini break down was the extent of his true emotions. They seriously all need therapy.

She misses the counselor she was seeing on Discovery.

“We should –” Keyla starts to say.

“Not do anything,” Hugh says going further behind his mask, “keep an ear on the coms, but otherwise we will only cause troubles if we interfere.”

This waiting game is infuriating.

Ash gasps and jerks up right; the heart rate monitors starts beeping rapidly and he leans over, throwing up all over the floor. Hugh runs over and helps Ash sit up, running a tricorder over his body.

“I need… I need to go back,” Ash says.

“I don’t thin that’s advisable,” Hugh says, “all your stats are elevated and with your dual physiology the drug is wreaking havoc on your system.”

Ash lurches to his feet, full body swaying as he tries to reorient himself, several other machines start screeching.

“Sit down,” Hugh orders, but Ash doesn’t listen stumbling over to the stash of drugs and reaching for the shaver. Hugh strides over and snatches it away. “No.”

“He’s there,” Ash snaps.

Hugh freezes for just a second, but his face returns to pure professionalism. “That doesn’t matter, your body is not taking kindly to the drug.”

“He’s not handling it well, not like you – he’s already weak. If I don’t go back he’ll die.”

“You’re likely to die if you go back in,” Hugh snaps, not budging despite the situation.

“Then there’ll be balance!” Ash says. “The network wants someone; right now, it’ll take Paul, but if I die in there it’ll take me.”

“No!” Tilly bursts out speaking before she’s registers it. Everyone turns to her and she blushes, but strengthens her resolve. “Your life is not lesser.”

“I will fix this,” Ash says, “it’s what I deserve.”

God, every one of them is seriously messed up. They should have realized that Ash is on the verge of suicidal, for really who wouldn’t be after what he’s been though? But she has to dissuade him, no one needs to die. She firmly believes that.

“What about Michael?”

Ash blanches for a second, but then if possible, becomes even more depressed. “She doesn’t need me, she’s moved on.”

Tilly shakes her head. “Tell that to the person who held her multiple nights as she cried over you.”

“Exactly! I hurt her. She deserves a clean break to move on, not have me constantly around.”

“It’ll destroy her if you die!”

“She has you.”

Tilly wants to scream. “Well I need you too!”

Silence.

As she takes a breath she’s surprised to realize it’s the truth, though as she thinks about it, it makes sense. They had formed a bond on the terraformed moon and Ash has now become an important part of her life.

“Ash, why don’t you tell us what you saw in the network,” Keyla says.

A beat then Ash sighs, closing his eyes and nods, sitting down heavily on the floor. Bryce goes to clean up the vomit while Tilly hesitates a moment before checking over her scans. She keeps one eye on Ash though. Hugh picks up a hypo and injects Ash with a shot. Ash barely winces.

“It was awful,” Ash starts, “everything is decaying and it scratches at you. You’ll go insane if you stay there too long.”

Everyone looks over at Paul, the implications of that very unsettling.

“You were right,” Ash says looking at Tilly. “I went back to the veil and Paul was there. He’s confused though – it’s pulling at him and trying to consume him. It’s only because I was there that he was able to stabilize himself. That’s why I have to go back, he’ll slip away if he doesn’t have someone to be his tether.”

Hugh picks up a couple of pieces of the drug and starts scanning them, then pulls his med kit closer and starts pulling out different medicines and tinctures.

“You’ll die,” Tilly says, knowing what he’s trying to do.

“I’m not supposed to be here, it makes sense.”

Keyla gasps looking between the drug in Hugh’s hand, Hugh, and Tilly. “You mean…?”

Tilly nods.

“No!” she says.

“Okay, how about instead of rushing into things we all take a moment to list out our options,” Bryce says as he kneels down and slowly puts his hand around the shaver. Hugh’s own hand tightens and they have a mini tug-a-war.

“Wait, you don’t get to sacrifice yourself if I can’t,” Ash says, catching up.

Hugh scowls, but at least he lets go of the shaver. Bryce quickly pulls back and slips it into his pocket.

“Okay,” Tilly says attempting to be cheerful, “let’s list out our options.”

“I go in and try and pull Paul back out,” Ash says.

“And then you’ll likely die,” Hugh snaps.

“Not necessarily, I’ve lasted this far, my body can hold out another trip.”

“No, because you’ll likely need a higher dosage to have the time to pull Paul out and that will have detrimental affects.”

“Well that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

God, they’re giving her a headache. “Okay, can we just… do we even know how we’ll get Paul back?”

It goes quiet and everyone awkwardly looks at one another.

“How’d he get out last time?” Keyla asks.

“I was able to show him the right path within the mycelial network,” Hugh says.

“But he’s not in the mycelial network so to speak, right?” Tilly says.

Ash nods. “He’s the veil, so that means someone has to create a pathway again.”

Hugh shakes his head. “We would need a tardigrade then, and even then, you need to enter from the other side, and the network was collapsing when we were last in it.”

“So, we’ve got nothing,” Bryce says.

“Well maybe we can try that. If I study the drug, I can perhaps change it to the right consistency and take it.”

“Then you’ll die,” Tilly says, “you are the doctor here… it’ll make more sense if I take it so you can administer the right antidotes.”

Hugh shakes his head. “No, that’s too tricky. If I administer the antidote too soon, you’ll be yanked back and I have no way of knowing the right timing.”

“Oh, so then this was another idea of you going in and dying again,” Tilly snaps. She’s thoroughly done with all this self-sacrificing behaviour.

It seems they are at a stalemate.

“Did Paul have any ideas?” Bryce asks.

Ash shakes his head. “It was hard enough just keeping him focused. Why don’t I make another small jump to see if I can get anything more?”

“It’ll be a waste of time and further deteriorate your body,” Hugh counters.

It’s silent again.

The com starts rapidly beeping. Bryce leaps to his feet and runs over to the cockpit, everyone piling in behind.

“It’s a signal!” Bryce exclaims, hands flying over the keyboard. “Oh… that’s weird.”

“What?” Keyla asks.

“The signal is coming from this area that I presume to be the prison cells.”

“Well, that would make sense.”

“No, but that area used to be surrounded by a shield making it impossible to transport anyone in or out of it, but now a small section containing six people is open. It’s like they want us to transport them out.”

The implications of that set in. “Could it be a trap?” Keyla asks.

“I don’t know,” Bryce says. He types in a few more commands. “It’s their signatures though.”

“Are they alive?” Tilly asks.

“Yes.”

Thank god for that.

“Bring them up,” Ash says, “we have nothing to lose.”

Well, they’re lives, but she does see where’s he getting at. Bryce looks around and the others nod so he connects to their signal then starts the transport.

…

“It’s obviously a trap,” Airium says, validating Michael’s concerns.

“Let’s think this through,” Saru cautions, but it hardly seems to be anything but. Why else would they ask them to reveal the location of the others only to let them escape. No, it was stupid to think otherwise. “If we don’t call them in then what happens?”

“They’ll kill us,” Georgiou responds sitting sullenly in the corner. Michael doubts that when she started this mission she had pictured herself ending up here.

“But Tilly and the others can potentially survive,” Michael argues, “shouldn’t we sacrifice ourselves to give them that chance?”

“But will the Federation accept only our deaths? Can that be enough to guarantee peace?” Rhys asks.

“It’s damned if we do, damned if we don’t,” Joann mutters, and she still seems to be the most depressed of the group, despite them all being depressed.

“Okay, let’s for a minute say the Romulans are telling the truth,” Saru says, “where would we jump to?”

Michael shakes her head. “Is it even possible to do a jump like that again?”

“We would have to ask Paul,” Saru says.

“We don’t even know if Paul’s alive,” Michael counters.

“But that means leaving everyone behind,” Rhys says, “our families, and friends.”

“We already left them behind when we left Discovery,” Joann says.

“But this would actually be final. Like no visits in prison or a secret meet-up years down the road, or…” Rhys peters off looking distraught.

Michael is starting to get a headache thinking about all this, and this talk about family is not helping.

“They likely wouldn’t answer if we made the hail anyways,” Airium says bringing the topic back into focus. That’s true.

Michael grabs the com. “We could then make the attempt and when it fails there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Oh so we’re just willing to die now?” Georgiou snaps.

“We don’t exactly have a choice,” Michael shoots back hardly in the mood for her attitude. Georgiou scowls at her, but turns away. This is all her fault anyways, or the majority of it is. Michael’s not naïve enough to believe Section 31 only wanted to start a war with the Romulans when Georgiou came around. No, Utzu is right, this has been in the planning for years. Which is depressing really.

Still, Georgiou is the one who made this all happen.

“Just get it over with,” Saru says nodding to the com.

Michael opens up a link. “Burnham here.” Static. “Hello?” Again, static.

She turns off the com then turns to the camera. “There, I tried – it didn’t work.”

Seconds later all they are all transported out of the cell.

They are beamed into the cramped shuttle and Michael can only stare around it for several seconds not at all understanding how that just happened. There’s no way the Romulans wouldn’t have made their cell transporter proof, but sure enough they are back in the shuttle with the makeshift spore drive and the rest of their group standing there waiting for them.

Tilly is the first one to move, running over to Michael and throwing her arms around her in a big hug. “We were so worried! We didn’t know what happened to you, but then we heard that you were captured and the Empress came to talk to you, but we didn’t know how to contact you or where you were or… or…”

“Hey, it’s alright, you got us,” Michael replies hugging her back tightly, and here she had mentally prepared herself to never see her again. In fact, now that she has Tilly in her arms she’s getting kind of emotional. Tears are actually springing in her eyes, but at least when she pulls back she sees Tilly is in the same boat. They both start giggling, even though they don’t know why – probably just the initial relief that’s making them high.

Around her the others are also hugging and greeting each other. From the looks of it, it seems that Keyla and Joann are having quite the reunion. Finally, if Michael does say so.

Michael then sees Ash, who has just finished hugging Saru, but is looking her way. Everything stops for just a second and before she can stop herself, not that she would want to, she walks over and pulls him into a kiss. It’s just the press of lips together but it settles her in a way that she hasn’t been in a long while and it feels like everything is back in place once again.

She pulls back laughing at the shocked expression on his face and pulls him into a hug.

“How did you get us out?” Saru asks.

“When you opened the com it signaled your location. When I checked it I found that I could transport you all out,” Bryce says.

“So there were no transporter shields?” Airium asks.

Bryce shrugs. “There were around your area, but in your cell there wasn’t.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Joann says.

“Who cares, we got you back,” Keyla says kissing Joann on the cheek. The two smile at each other and it really is adorable, but it does matter. It matters very much.

“She did it to show us that we can trust her,” Michael says.

“What?” Hugh asks.

“Empress Utzu. That’s why she gave us the com.”

“So we’re actually free to go? We can just jump out of here?” Rhys asks.

“Not if we want the war to start,” Saru says, and he’s right.

“What do you mean?” Keyla asks.

Michael sighs. “We need to give them our DNA so they can provide ‘proof’ that we’re dead, and then we need to jump somewhere where we can’t come back since we can’t technically exist anymore.”

“Like another universe?” Tilly asks.

“And how are we going to do that?” Hugh asks.

Everyone looks over at Paul and Michael’s heart sinks as she sees Paul still laying on the pull-out bed unresponsive. “No luck?”

Hugh shakes his head, his eyes tight. She looks over at Ash and her stomach tightens as he looks away from her as if he’s ashamed. She turns to Tilly to find her looking between Ash and Hugh with pain in her eyes. She’s not sure she wants to know what happened here while she was gone.

Beeping starts up from the front of the shuttle.

Bryce scrambles to the cockpit, then calls for Michael a moment later. She heads to the front and her heart sinks as she finds three Romulan ships surrounding their shuttle. It really was too much to hope that it wasn’t a trap.

“They’re asking for you,” Bryce says.

“Open a channel.”

Leral’s face comes up on screen. “Ah, Michael Burnham, I hope the rest of your crew is alright.”

“They’re fine. Are you planning on blowing us up now?”

Leral smirks. “As much as I would like to do that, I’ve been given orders to only do so if absolutely necessary.”

“The Empress did promise us a day after all,” Michael replies.

“She did. More than I would have given you.”

“Well thankfully that’s not your decision to make.”

“We’ll be here awaiting your answer,” Leral says and Michael really wishes she could wipe that smirk off her face. She has to remind herself of the importance of diplomacy however, so she nods her head.

“We'll get back to you shortly.”

She ends the transmission then stares at the blank screen for several moments.

“What are we going to do?” Bryce asks.

“If we can’t make a jump somewhere, they’re not just going to let us go free.”

“So everything hinges on Paul.”

Michael nods.

“So we’re fucked.”

It certainly does seem so.

They head to the back and inform the others about what happened. Then it’s a quick catch up on both sides of what’s been going on and once that’s done a glum silence permeates the shuttle. It really does feel like a hopeless situation.

The disturbing part of it all is that Ash is willing to sacrifice himself and out of all the options that one is the most logical. They need Hugh for his medical expertise, and there are too many uncertainties using Tilly, and the other option is all of them dying which is something they all want to avoid, so really, Ash is the expendable one. But he isn’t. Not to her.

For fuck’s sake, they’ve already lost far too many people, no one else should die.

And even if they all somehow survive, they’ll have to be someplace unfamiliar where they’ll have no one but themselves to lean on.

She feels partially responsible for dragging them all into this. “I’m sorry guys.”

“No, we all chose this,” Tilly says reaching over and grabbing Michael’s hand, squeezing it in her own. Michael smiles through her tears not knowing what she would do without her. “Besides, it’s not like my mom will miss me.” And Michael can see that it’s not true which just makes it all the worse, but she appreciates what she’s doing so she squeezes her hand back.

“I guess I’m the one who should apologize,” Georgiou says and Michael turns to her in shock. Georgiou actually looks apologetic, which is not something Michael ever expected to see from her.

And perhaps she should be mad at her, but she doesn’t have the energy anymore though she does still want to know her motives. “Why? Why did you change your mind?”

Georgiou looks up and she sees many layers of regret and vulnerability that she will certainly deny later. “I think you know why.”

Michael has to close her eyes as fresh tears well up and spill over, when she opens them again she stares at Georgiou and with a fiery stare. “Promise me something.”

Georgiou tilts her head.

“Promise me that if we make it out of this, wherever we end up you won’t do this again. You won’t try and start a war or overthrow a government or anything of the sort. Got that? Promise me.”

Georgiou’s jaw ticks and she has an internal battle, but in the end, she looks down at the floor in defeat. “I promise.”

“Thank you.”

Now, they just have to find a solution.

“We need more time,” Saru says.

“We have till tomorrow,” Michael says, rubbing her temples.

“Yes, but if Paul could make the jump we would be in agreeance of their plan, right?”

Michael looks at Saru and nods slowly. “Let’s put it to a vote.”

“What’s the point?” Hugh asks.

“Just to see,” Michael says reminding herself that she should cut Hugh some slack.

“If we could make the jump is everyone okay with faking our deaths and never returning,” Saru says.

A heavy silence falls upon the group.

“I guess we did sign up for that,” Bryce says. One by one the others nod and give their agreement.

“Okay,” Saru says, “then Michael, you should go back down to the Empress and give them our DNA along with tell them about our situation.”

“And give them all the cards?” Georgiou scoffs.

“It’s not like we ever had any,” Michael retorts. Yes, that may buy them some time. It’s the best plan they’ve got after all. “Okay, let’s do that.”

She looks over at Hugh who stares at her for several moments before nodding and grabbing some vials. He goes around the group and collects blood samples from all of them; he hesitates at Paul’s, but quickly does it nonetheless. Once done, he gives them over to Michael.

“Bryce, can you send me down again?” Michael asks.

He nods and goes to the cockpit. “Just yell at me when you’re ready.”

“Wait,” Ash says, “you shouldn’t go alone.”

Michael tilts her head, a warmth blooming in her chest. “Are you volunteering?”

He looks flustered, but also regretful. “No, it should be Georgiou.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Rhys mutters, and Michael agrees. She still doesn’t trust Georgiou, despite her apology and she doesn’t think the Empress will take kindly to seeing her either.

“You should go,” Tilly says to Ash, “me, Saru, and Hugh will start brainstorming different solutions. Besides, I think you need a break.”

Ash grimaces and Michael can tell that he wants to go with her, though his sense of duty is telling him to stay. And this time she wants to be selfish. “I’d feel better if you were the one to come.”

He looks over at her and they make eye contact, and in that moment, she knows he’ll come.

“Okay.”

With that settled, they both get ready. As she does so, she catches sight of Tilly who looks worried. “Hey, it’ll be okay.”

Tilly nods, but she doesn’t look convinced. “I know.”

Michael hesitates, they are in front of others after all, but then again they are a family and they’ve been through a lot together. And really, she feels like it’s now or never and all those words that were left unsaid can be spoken with an action. So, she steps forwards and gently kisses her on the lips. Tilly stares at her in shock as she steps back.

“I… I… what?”

Michael looks over at Ash and is pleased to see that he’s also smiling while he looks between them. “Bryce, you ready?”

“Ready when you are,” he replies cheerfully.

“Wait,” Ash says and then he also steps forwards and quickly kisses Tilly on the cheek. She looks even more flabbergasted with her cheeks bright red.

“I… how does this work?”

Michael and Ash look at each other with smug smiles. Michael turns back to Tilly with a shrug. “We’ll figure it out when we get back. Bryce, energize.”

And so they get transported away, with Tilly’s flustered but pleased smile embedded into her mind.

Utzu is waiting for them when they arrive back in the cell. “Ah, finally.”

Michael steps forward, holding out the case of their DNAs. “Here you go.”

She takes it and looks it over, verifying the authenticity. Once done she looks at them with a smile. “Very good, so have you decided where you’ll go?”

“About that…”

“This plan won’t work if you’re still hanging around,” Utzu snaps her eyes flashing.

Michael grimaces. “We know, we just have some technical problems on our end. It may take longer than a day to get them sorted.”

“Oh? How long?”

She looks over at Ash who shrugs. “We have no idea.”

Utzu scowls. “We can’t drag this out much longer. The Federation will get suspicious when it hasn’t heard from the Discovery soon.”

Michael nods. “We just… we just need a few more days to figure it out.” She’s lying through her teeth here, but if it’ll even give them an extra day that’s better than nothing.

Utzu tilts her head as she assess them. “One extra day, and if you’re not gone by then they we will destroy all of you.”

Michael didn’t expect anything less. “I understand.”

“Good, then get to work.”

“Bryce, bring us back,” Ash calls and the transporter beam carries them away.

…

Someone’s screaming.

It’s annoying is what it is.

Why won’t it stop?

Who even is it?

Wait.

There’s pain… everywhere.

No. NO. NO! NOOOO!

He’s the one screaming.

He can’t stop.

It’s no longer annoying, it’s terrifying.

Where is he?

Who is he?

Hate.

Anger.

Revulsion.

Die.

Yes, die… no wait, he should…

He doesn’t remember.

What is his name?

Did he ever have a name?

Does it matter?

No. Just stop.

Balance. Need balance.

So die.

Okay. How to do that?

Let go.

Of what?

Join.

But it’s important. What am I letting go of?

Forget.

He already forgets. But he shouldn’t. He needs to remember.

But balance.

STOP.

It hurts. Pulling, ripping, scratching, tearing, whipping, degrading.

Laughing. They’re laughing at him.

No, he doesn’t like that. Stop laughing at him.

Join. They’ll stop if he joins.

But wait.

No, there’s nothing.

He doesn’t remember anything so that means there was nothing, right?

Yes.

Okay…

“Paul!”

What was that?

Don’t listen. Come. Join. Balance. Stop hurt. Death.

Right.

“Paul, I don’t have much time.”

Who’s saying that?

Don’t listen.

No, he should…

“Hugh says…”

Hugh? Who’s Hugh? The name is familiar.

NO! STOP! GET OUT! YOU’RE NOT WANTED HERE! LEAVE!

“Paul listen!”

“Who are you?”

He has a voice. He forgot he had a voice. It feels weird to use it.

Pain. Horror. Terror. Pain.

PARASITE. INTRUDER. INTERLOPER. TRESPASSER.

“The music! Listen!”

Music? What’s that? Pain, so much pain.

Screaming. That’s him again, isn’t it. Make the pain stop.

Die and it’ll stop.

“Hugh….!”

That name again. It’s important. He knows it is. But why?

“…music… opera…”

Wait… he knows this. He knows… “Hugh…” he swears he’s never heard that name before, but it feels right on his tongue.

NO!

“Yes! Remember him! Remember the music!”

Music… ears… screaming… he’s screaming. He can’t hear anything except for his screams. He needs to stop screaming. “Help me.”

“Just follow the music…”

But how can he follow something if he can’t hear it? And how will he follow? He can’t move… or can he? What is keeping him here? Why is he here? He shouldn’t be here.

“Let me see you.”

He can close his mouth. Oh, that stops the screaming. Amazing. Everything still hurts though. But he can move. Oh and…

The man. There’s a man there. He’s also in pain. Maybe he can help.

Wait… hasn’t he seen him before?

Come back. Stop. No. Die. Stop. Balance. Equilibrium.

He’s stopped screaming. He can hear now. Pain. So much pain.

But wait. Music. He knows this music. He’s heard this music before.

But how. He has no past, he has no future, there’s been nothing but this. Pain and screaming. But that can’t be true. Because that music… and Hugh… he remembers…

He doesn’t remember, but it’s there, he knows there’s something there. If he can just…

It all comes back, his life, who he is, what’s happened to him, how he got here. And the man, that’s Ash Tyler.

“Ash!”

The man… Ash Tyler looks at him, and there’s relief in his eyes. “Oh thank… Paul, see if you can follow the music out!”

And if only it were that simple.

“The network won’t let me go.”

“You have to try.”

But he can’t. The network needs balance or it will be ruined.

“We’ll all die if you can’t get out of here.”

“What…?”

“It’s a long story but basically if we don’t jump to an alternate universe, or somewhere we can’t return, we’ll be killed by the Romulans.”

Alternate universe… Romulans… jump… killed…

“Somewhere we can’t return.”

“Yes, but what’s more important is you wake up!”

He watches and as he does so Ash Tyler is fading.

“Follow…”

Going…

“… music…”

Going…

“…Kasselian opera…”

Gone.

Come. Stop. End. Balance. Death. Die. Die. Die.

He needs to do something… What does he need to do?

Fix. Fix. Fix. Die. Die. Die.

Yes that’s right… wait no. What is that sound?

Don’t listen. Die. Die. Die.

The music. Yes, that’s right! Follow the music. Hugh…

Ash Tyler… he was just here. He’s gone now.

Romulans. Jump. Can’t return.

Dying. Stop. Dying.

This place is dying, it won’t last long unless he dies, but if he dies then so will everyone else. He can’t have that. That’s not fair. He has to save them. But how?

The music. It’s… awful. He hates it, it’s annoying and pretentious.

He can’t follow the music, but he can save his friends… no his family.

Somewhere where they can’t return.

Somewhere where the mycelial network doesn’t exist anymore, at least not in its current form. Alternate Universe?

No.

Die. Die. Dying.

Pain.

Screaming.

Music.

Opera.

Alternate Universe.

Same, still dying, still pain, still screaming.

Listen to the music. The music he hates, but Hugh loves. Hugh. Who’s Hugh?

Die. Dying. Pain… forget. Balance. Balance. Balance. Die.

Alternate Universe – that won’t work. What’s next?

Forget. Die. Join. Balance. Revenge.

The man… Ash! He said… somewhere they can’t return.

Different quadrant. Not A. B? No. Same, still dying, still pain, still screaming, still falling apart.

Where? Where? Where?

Just stop. Give in. It’s over. Die. Nothing left.

He has to save them. But how?

It’s all the same everywhere. Everything is interconnected. Everywhere is the same, it’s all touched by the network. The network is everywhere. It’s dying everywhere.

No it isn’t.

It used to be healthy.

But it's too messed up to go back to that state… unless he dies. But he has to save his family.

But… future. It’ll be different. How? He doesn’t know, but they can’t return.

They can’t return. They’ll be safe. They’ll be alive. It’ll be different.

One last jump.

NO! STOP! DIE! FORGET! BALANCE! JOIN! STOP!

Music. Play it louder.

Yes, he hates it yet loves it. The music, it’s everything. Listen to the music. Follow, no this time lead the music. The music will follow him. Yes.

Concentrate, see the future, go to the future…

Jump.

…

Ash opens his eyes. The world is spinning and he wants to throw up again, but his stomach is empty so the most he’ll spit up will be bile, which he will force it down for now. He tries to focus, he can hear others around him talking, probably asking him questions, but his mind is in disarray.

And he’s tired. Perhaps he should just close his eyes again and sleep. That sounds like an excellent plan.

There’s a sharp pain in his neck and a surge of adrenaline rushes through his body. Fucking hell.

His eyes snap open and he glares at Hugh who is glaring right back.

“Did you give him the message?”

Message? Oh right, yeah, the mycelial network. Paul.

Did he?

Yes, he thinks he did. Or at least if he remembers it correctly, it’s hard to piece it all together. The network certainly didn’t approve of linear thought or conversation. It was more yelling at him to die or get out. Probably both.

But yes, he did speak to Paul; he remembers now.

“He knows. I think he’ll try.”

“Think?” Hugh snaps sounding far too ungrateful for Ash’s tastes. Does he realize how unpleasant it is to go to the veil? Oh wait… yeah.

He forces himself to sit up, which does no favours to his brain which is still unbalanced. Someone is at his side… it’s Michael. Oh. That’s nice. He smiles at her, or at least he thinks he smiles. It must fail since she looks at him in concern.

He decides to focus his attention back on Hugh.

“I honestly think we’re going to have to prepare for the worst.”

Hugh jolts back and yeah, Ash should have said that better, but he didn’t want to give Hugh false hope and it hadn’t been pretty in the veil. He doubts even Paul dying will settle it down, that’s how bad it is.

It’s best too…

A dozen alarms start beeping. Ash looks around and sees the others scramble to the different compartments. The lights flash on and off, things start shaking, a hissing sound starts up.

“Gravity’s off!” Rhys yells, and sure enough the weight disappears and everything starts floating.

“Oxygen’s failing!” Joann says, and that’s when you know you’re truly screwed.

“Is this the Romulans?” Airium asks.

“They promised us an extra day,” Michael snarls, pushing off towards the cockpit.

“Wait, Paul!” Tilly shouts and everyone turns towards Paul who is still strapped to the pull-out bed with headphones in his ears. Sure enough something is going on. Ash can’t say what, but something is surely happening.

The shuttle starts spinning, and without gravity everything goes everywhere and it’s not fun. Ash bangs his head on the ceiling which does nothing to help with his balance. Neither does the spinning for that matter.

“Temperature’s rising!” Joann yells again, not that they can do anything about it in this situation.

“Paul!” Hugh yells, somehow pushing himself over to the bed despite the chaos around him.

All the machines around him are going haywire, some even sparking, while others go dead. Ash finds his gaze totally focused on his form – there’s movement behind the closed eyelids and he's twitching his head back and forth. His arms are straining against the straps and it’s almost like… it’s almost like he’s trying to go somewhere…

Somewhere where they can’t return.

Oh he hopes he’s right.

He pushes himself towards the bed, and rams right into Saru’s body. That throws him for a loop and for a second he’s disoriented. Once he’s back in focus, however, he grabs Saru’s arm and points at Paul. “We need to get him hooked to the spore drive.”

Saru looks at him as if he’s crazy.

“Trust me!”

There’s the screeching sound of metal being pulled apart and Ash has no doubt that the shuttle is about to burst any minute. That or they’ll all die of asphyxiation soon enough. They need to hook in Paul now.

Saru must see the desperation in his eyes, for he nods and pushes downwards, his Kelpian body able to handle the harsher conditions better than a human’s. He starts unstrapping Paul and of course Hugh goes to stop him, but Ash is ready for that and grabs Hugh from behind. Hugh struggles for a bit, but he’s no match for a half human/half Klingon.

Saru grabs Paul’s body and pushes him towards the spore drive.

“No!” Hugh shouts, struggling once again in Ash’s arms.

“We have to,” Ash replies.

“It’ll kill him.”

“So will this,” Ash snaps back. Actually, unless they do this Paul just might be the only person to survive and then he’ll totally be on his own which would be awful. No, this is the only way. Or at least that’s what he’s choosing to believe.

The lack of oxygen is kicking in, and even Ash’s more durable body is starting to feel the affects. Hugh slumps in his arms and Ash lets go, no longer having the energy to hold on and not needing to any longer.

Saru activates the spore drive, it starts up, injects Paul and…

Everything freezes, for just a moment everything is silent. Perfectly so.

Then it’s like there’s a jolt in his stomach.

Everything comes crashing to the ground.

Ash lands awkwardly on his side with Hugh slamming into his chest forcing him onto his back with Hugh sprawled across it. All the beeping and noises have stopped and the temperature is cooling down, and there’s blessed oxygen again.

Ash breaths a sigh of relief and decides to just lay on the hard floor of the shuttle for several moments to just catch his breath. Unfortunately, the dizziness still remains, but that’s more to do with the drug in his system than anything else. They had decided to do a last ditch effort of letting him take a small dose to try and tell Paul to listen to the music in the hopes he'll find his way out. He doesn't know if he managed to convey the information properly, but something certainly happened. He hopes whatever it is, it means he'll never have to take the awful drug again.

Movement starts up around him as people grown and shake themselves off. There’s a lot of heavy breathing.

“What the fuck happened here?”

The weight on his chest is gone in an instant as Hugh leaps to his feet. Of course the moment he does so he sways and has to lean over to catch his breath, but he still stumbles down the shuttle towards the spore drive where Paul is unhooking himself and looking frankly disgusted with the sight before him. Which is hardly fair, but it is Paul.

Paul catches sight of Hugh and the disgust quickly turns into concern as he rushes forward to catch Hugh who all but collapses in Paul’s arms. It’s really cute if Ash does say so.

“Are you alright?” Paul asks.

Hugh starts laughing, a weak thing, but it is a laugh. “Am I alright? Gods! I should be asking you that.”

“Why?”

“Why! Because… because… you fucking asshole! You almost died.”

Paul scoffs. “You’re the one who looked like you almost died.” Then he freezes, pale face going even paler. “Did you?”

“What?”

“Almost die? I just got you fucking back you bastard! And here you are trying to off yourself again!”

“I’m trying to off myself? Are you fucking kidding me? You’re the one who was unresponsive for the last 24 hours!”

“What are you talking about? I just made the jump to Romulan territory.”

Oh so that explains it. Ash slowly gets to his feet. He notices the others around him have all stopped to stare at Hugh and Paul, but it’s probably best if they figure out where they are.

He lets Hugh bring Paul up to date while he stumbles to the cockpit. Based on the coordinates, they’re in Starfleet territory, near Vulcan actually and so it’s fairly easy to tune into their frequencies. Just the base things to get public information.

Oh. Fuck. Well, it certainly is somewhere they can’t return.

He tunes the information into a tricorder and heads to the back. Everyone is now up and Paul is sitting confusedly on the bed with Hugh fusing over him.

Tilly is the first one to notice him and goes to his side, looking him over in concern. “Are you okay.”

That’s a loaded question, and really he’s not, but for the first time in a long time he thinks he might be able to get better so there’s that.

“Hey, everyone.”

They all turn to him and as he looks around he knows that what he’s about to say next will change their lives irrevocably. Some for the better, some for the worst, but he knows that they’ll always have each other and together they can get through this. He'll start with the good news.

“We no longer have to worry about the Romulan deadline.”

There’s a series of 'what’s' and confused inquiries.

Now for the bad.

“We don’t because we’re in the future.” He passes the tricorder to Tilly.

There’s silence, looks of disbelief, then… Tilly gasps.

“What the ever loving fuck?”

Everyone scrambles around the tricorder trying to see what Tilly is seeing. Eventually they all get a look and for the next hour they verify and re-check the machines and the frequencies, but there’s no denying it. They are officially in the future.

“So what are we to do now?” Rhys asks.

There’s silence for a couple of moments, then Michael laughs.

“We start over.”

And it’s daunting and scary and none of them have any idea what they’ll encounter, but it’ll be an adventure. And as Ash looks around at the group of people in the shuttle he knows that they’ll be just fine, because all of them are fighters who love deeply and that’s what they’ll need going forward. And who knows what they’ll find, but Ash is excited and for the first time in a long time he feels like he can start afresh. That he won’t be held to his past and his mistakes nor the stigma of being this half human/half Klingon thing.

And that is just so freeing.

...

And so they set off… Boldly going where no one has gone before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah... this is probably a disappointing ending for the few people who actually read and liked this story lol...  
> It does lend itself to potentially continue, but I doubt I will since I don't have the time or energy to do so and I don't think people care so I'll leave this as is. 
> 
> I feel like this got too convoluted and at times repetitive so if anyone is willing to tell me where they got bored, confused or disinterested I would really appreciate it!
> 
> Thanks <3


End file.
